


Fallen from Grace

by Team_Alpha_Wolf_Squadron



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: M/M, Warlock Alec Lightwood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-02-24 22:54:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 56,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22085845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Team_Alpha_Wolf_Squadron/pseuds/Team_Alpha_Wolf_Squadron
Summary: Alec was uprooted shortly after Jace arrived at the Institute to go live with Ragnor Fell. When Downworlders go missing, Alec is introduced to the lengths warlocks will go to in order to stop another war.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Ragnor Fell & Alec Lightwood
Comments: 18
Kudos: 310





	1. Chapter 1

When Alec had been younger, he remembers going shopping with his mom. She’d made a big thing about it, planning it for weeks and telling him every time she came from a hunt the number of days they had left before going out. He knew she was trying to make it exciting for him, he never got out a lot. He also thought she was genuinely excited for her day off. No meetings, no organising hunts. Izzy and Max weren’t coming so it meant she just had to look after Alec, and since Alec was nine and responsible enough to mostly look after himself it promised to be an easy day. 

He remembers having fun. The snow had been deep and tickling the tips of the wings on his back. His mom had thrown a snowball at him which had been completely unfair because there was supposed to be some sort of protocol before engaging in a snowball fight. Then they’d gotten cocoa. Good cocoa. From an actual store that gave him so much whipped cream it went up his nose. 

It had been great. 

Then Alec had seen the cat.

It was just, there. Left on the street. Frozen.

He remembered asking if it had been a demon. But nothing supernatural was the cause of the poor cats death. Just winter. Natural, freezing cold winter.

Not all cats had homes, his mom had told him, and some of them got rather desperate around the winter time, sneaking into places they shouldn’t have. He’d been genuinely horrified when he heard of some of the other places cats died in. Cars. Falling off ledges. Dumpsters because people didn’t think to look to see if there was something inside of it. Starvation.

He didn’t like that. Cats didn’t deserve that. What had they done wrong in the world? They were a little mischievous, but all animals were. They didn’t kill people however, they weren’t demons or monsters like Alec. They were just cats. 

He spent the rest of winter pestering Church, the Institute’s cat. Research, he told his mom when she told him to leave the thing alone. Alec just thought she was jealous, Church didn’t like anyone at the Institute. Well, he sort of liked Alec. But Alec had feathers on his back Church liked to play with, so of course Church liked him. 

He was on the computer more too, a notebook next to him constantly as he looked up what cats liked. Church couldn’t drink milk, cats were lactose intolerant it turned out. That meant the movies lied to him, which was something Alec didn’t like either. There was cat milk, but he would have to buy that from a store, and Alec only had his pocket money, and he’d already had his trip out for the month. 

There were a lot of foods cats couldn’t eat either, and the foods they could eat Alec had to rummage around the kitchen for until he found it. Still, he didn’t believe cats liked what they were allowed to eat until Church gave it the okay. 

He had to ask his mom to buy specific items, handing over his pocket money when she raised a brow at him. “It’s important,” he told her. 

Her face twisted but she took his pocket money anyway, Alec having a good box worth of food when she next came home from the store. He filled his water bottle up, waiting until everyone was out before sneaking to the crypt and out the window at the top of the room that led to the graveyard. 

It was a little difficult getting his box out, but Alec managed. 

He got his map out, the city different at night to a boy who got out maybe once or twice every two months if he was lucky. So he’d planned a route, and, thankfully, New York always had lights near their signs so he mostly kept on the right track. 

Every so often, usually when he got to the mouth of an alley, he’d stop and open some of the meat or fish he’d had his mom get and leave it for whatever cat might be in there. He was out there for hours. Sometimes the cats would hear him coming, and since he knew some of them, often ones that had tried to follow him home, he stayed and stroked them for a while. It was weird, but cats were one of the few creatures that could see through glamours. They were even able to safely enter and leave the Seelie realm. He was ninety percent sure cats had some sort of magic, but didn’t want to question it too much in case he found out something he wasn’t supposed to. 

It was as he was stroking one of the cats he’d seen before that he found his box snatched from his hands and a pair of fangs in his face.

Vampires.

More than one too.

The one with his box was a rough looking teen, face constantly twisted in a sneer as he rooted through the food. “Little Nephilim,” the other cooed, this man a lot bigger than his counterpart. There was a jacket on his back, but since the sleeves were ripped Alec didn’t see the point of it. It wasn’t going to keep him warm, and besides, vampires didn’t get cold so what was he even doing with one on. He leaned closer to Alec, the putrid smell of blood hitting Alec’s nose, “You’re a long way from home.”

“There’s nothing in here but meat,” the teen huffed, tossing the box to the ground, some of the meat spilling onto the snow. 

“Hey!” It wouldn’t be so bad had they not scared the cats off. “Be careful, I used all my money on that.”

“Oh I’m sorry your highness,” the teen bowed. 

“You should be,” Alec told him. His mom had always told him not to show fear to downworlders, especially vampires and werewolves. They could smell it, and most didn’t back off when they did scent it in the air. If anything, it made them more excited. So Alec kept his voice steady and remembered where the knife his mom always made him carry was. He would be fine. He trained with the others, mom made sure of that. He managed to block his dad a little last time he’d come into Alec’s room too. He could take two measly vampires. “Now if you excuse me, I have places to be.”

His arm was grabbed before he could take a step, the big man leaning even further into his space. “You’re not going anywhere kid. I haven’t had angel blood in years, and just my luck one comes along right when I’m hunting.”

No fear. Show no fear. “Well, sorry to tell you this but I don’t feel much like being drained dry right now, so,” he yanked his arm back. Or, tried to, vampires were strong after all.

No problem. Yanking again, he waited for the split second the vampire’s arm moved with him, pulling him that little bit closer, before striking out with his other hand, palm flat and right into that face that was far too close to his own. It hurt Alec more than it probably hurt the vampire, but being hit in the face from anything was a shock to the system. Meaning the grip on his arm was slack enough for him to pull out of and start running the other way. 

He’d just have to hope the cats had some kind of communication system. That they could open cans and packets too since Alec wouldn’t be able to do it for them. His mom had always taught him, if he ever had to run, it didn’t matter what he might leave behind. His life was more important than anything he might be carrying. So, sorry cats!

He didn’t get far. About the edge of the street really, before the vampires caught him, this time wasting no time and sinking their teeth into his arm. He screamed. One short burst of sound that quickly tapered off once the endorphins kicked in. 

He ended up on the ground, the snow cool against his heated skin, the vampire above him gagging, spitting. “Eugh! He’s got something in him!” 

Some part of Alec was telling him to move. To get up. But the rest of him was still riding a high. One that stayed with him as he was yanked up, the vampire’s face getting in his again.

“What is it? Holy water? What the hell is in me right now you little shit?” 

He was shook, the knock of his head backwards enough to snap him back to awareness. 

Ignoring the blood on his wrist, Alec reached back for the knife, swiping forward with it until it cut across the vampire’s face. He ran as soon as his feet hit the ground, this time diving into the nearest all hours store, “They’re trying to take me!” he screamed, “They’re trying to take me!” he dove towards the cashier, the woman behind it seeing his bloody arm, the men running into the store behind him and getting a bat from behind the counter. 

“By the candy kid,” she ordered, someone else in the store getting their phone out. Alec had never been happier he hadn’t thought to glamour himself from the mundanes. The cashier swung the bat once before threatening the vamps. With mundanes around them and the threat of the cops the vamps quickly fled. But Alec didn’t think for a minute they weren’t waiting outside for him, hidden in the shadows. 

He got a phone put in his hand as soon as the guys were gone, more than one adult asking if he was okay and what his parents number was. Alec, well, he hadn’t thought this far ahead. His mom would kill him if he phoned her on patrol. Especially since she thought he was in bed, where he was supposed to be right now, and not on the street feeding cats. She hadn’t asked about the food, but Alec was sure she had her suspicions, and had also probably been waiting for Alec to ask her to take him out again. Something he, in hindsight, probably should have done. 

Thankfully someone came to his rescue just before the cops arrived. Although, Alec wasn’t sure if it was actually a good thing or not that it was another vampire that came through the door. “Alexander,” the man greeted, little emotion in, well, all of him. “There you are. Mother’s been worried about you.” he blinked boredly at the cashier, “I’ll take him from here.”

He must have encatoed them or something since the girl let Alec go with him. Alec, for his part, played along until he got out of the store. As soon as snow was under his feet again Alec took off, this vampire letting him get two blocks before slamming him into a wall.

The wind blew out of him, Alec doubling over to catch his breath as the vampire leaned on the wall opposite. “You’re lucky those idiots called you in Nephilim. Luckier still I know the shadowhunters at the Institute. Don’t walk on your own again.” 

That answered how he knew Alec’s name. Still, “They’re not supposed to attack shadowhunters. It’s against the Accords.”

A long sigh escaped the vampire, which really meant he was annoyed because vampires didn’t need to breathe. “I see no runes. You’re not a shadowhunter yet.” he grabbed Alec by the back of his shirt, steering him until the two were walking side by side down the street. “Vampires love loopholes. You’d do well to remember that.”

The vampire didn’t let go of Alec the whole way he steered them across New York. He didn’t bite Alec however, nor did he tell Alec to put the knife he still had in his hand away. The Institute reared after a while, Alec breathing easier when he saw it. They weren’t going to the Du Mort then.

The vampire let Alec go as soon as they were in front of the ruins. He looked Alec over, a pained look overcoming him as he asked, “What were you doing out alone anyway? Don’t you usually hunt in packs?”

“Feeding the cats.” Which reminded him, “The vampires who got me knocked the box over though. If you’re going back that way could you maybe open the packets. I don’t want any more cats to starve, it’s gonna get really cold this week.”

The vampire looked at him for a moment before taking one slow blink and yanking Alec back over to him. Before Alec could even react the vampire was licking up Alec’s cut wrist, the skin knitting over until there was just a pink line where the bite had been. He pulled a face as soon as he did it, looking Alec over again. 

Could… Alec realised, could vampires tell if someone wasn’t a shadowhunter? 

He ran away before he could get his answer, remembering at the last minute that he would be logged if he came through the front door, so he slipped back through the graveyard and into the crypt.

He didn’t know if it was the blood loss, the excitement finally dying down or simply exhaustion from being awake all day and half the night but Alec passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow. 

He woke up the next morning to an ordinary day. He had breakfast, he played with Izzy, he tried to teach Max his first words and avoided his dad when the man scoured the training room for Alec. He found his mom later, before she went out hunting. Izzy was at her rune studies, and had Alec been allowed to bear them he was sure he would be there too. But his dad had already made it perfectly clear that wasn’t happening so here he was, hanging on the corner of her desk. “Do you think we could get some milk?” 

She put her pen down, pursing her lips as she looked at him, “Is this about the cats?”

He nodded. “I’m worried about them. I wanted to go feed them but,” vampires had knocked his box off him and he wasn’t admitting that even under pain of torture so, “it’s really cold out, and we aren’t awake early enough to feed them through the day. And cats are mostly nocturnal so they won’t even be out if we do wake up early enough.” The internet had been very informative about that. He’d noticed, too, that Church was more active on a night than a day.

“What happened to that box I got you?” 

Alec shrugged, hoping his mom believed him when he said, “Church got into it.” 

Her eyes narrowed but she didn’t interrogate him more, just sighed, pushing her chair back and motioning him around. He happily hopped on her knee, the pair of them knowing he was almost too old for this, his wings flattening out and curling around him as she pushed them both back to the desk. “Let’s see what we can do then.”

It was sort of a project after that. Something to keep Alec busy and out of her hair. It also kept him away from Robert if he was rooting through the kitchen for boxes instead of sitting with Izzy during her lessons.

Every week, once a week mom made sure to tell him, they’d go out and feed the cats. Once they even saw the vampire out. The kind one that had helped Alec. He didn’t speak to them, just eyed Alec’s mom and the box in their arms before going on his merry way. 

The snow melted eventually however, and mom kind of had a point that they didn’t have to feed them now they weren’t in extreme danger with the snow and cold and stuff. Alec still made a point of having his mom take them to the shelter anyway, giving over the rest of his pocket money he’d saved up for four weeks to the staff so they could buy more food to feed to their own cats. 

Things went back to normal after that. Alec hung out with Izzy. He was forced to use his pocket money to get new clothes because his old ones were getting a little small and he locked his door at night when Robert decided to take up drinking again. 

Normal stuff. 

But Alec didn’t forget about the cats. All year he spent looking up different things he could do this year to help them. Maybe take a few in. Maybe take a few in before winter hit. Mom didn’t have to know about it. 

Except she did find out about it because sometimes Izzy spoke before thinking. He loved his sister. Really he did. But she didn’t have to go around telling everyone about the squishy cats Alec had hidden in the old church.

She didn’t mind, strangely enough, just sighed at him when she came down to see how many he had. His dad on the other hand wasn’t so happy. Which was how Alec ended up carrying the cats he’d taped in a box out of the Institute and back onto the streets. 

His dad had been right. They shouldn’t be in the Institute. Who knew what might happen to them. Alec couldn’t be trusted with them either. Who knew what he might do to them. He was half demon, what if he ate them? His dad was certainly worried enough about it. Had he seen warlocks eat cats before?

Alec didn’t want to eat a cat but what if he couldn’t help himself?

He sniffed, the air crisp around him. It was cold enough he had to start wearing his coat again. He’d have to let the cats go somewhere he was sure they could find easy shelter. 

A sigh was his first warning as he ambled down the street that he wasn’t alone. The sky was dark, which was why he should have remembered there were other things out right now. Like vampires.

“Nephilim,” the nice vampire greeted. “I know it was a while ago, but what did I say about travelling alone?” He caught up to Alec quickly, his legs much longer. 

“Sorry,” Alec sniffed, then gave up trying to breathe through his nose and watched the air mist out of his mouth. “Dad said I had to get the cats out.” 

A hand came on Alec’s shoulder, the first emotion Alec ever saw on that vampire were his eyes widening slightly, his fingers wiping underneath Alec’s nose and coming away red. “Your dad huh?”

“He doesn’t want them to get hurt.” Alec didn’t want them to get hurt either. They’d done nothing wrong. 

The vampire took the box off him, “I’ll take them somewhere safe.”

“No,” He tried grabbing it back but the vampire was taller than him, ergo able to hold it out of Alec’s reach. “I’ll do it.” Vampires sometimes drained animals too. It defeated the point if they ended up dead anyway. 

The vampire seemed to know where Alec’s thoughts had headed as he rolled his eyes, “I have a friend who takes in strays. He’ll look after them through the winter.” he turned Alec around, bringing the box back to his side, “Go back home Nephilim, and don’t come back out without your mom.”

He zipped away before Alec could fight him, leaving Alec no choice but to go home. If he asked his mom as she cleaned him up just how to track a vampire that was no ones business but his own.

“How did you say you hurt your nose?” mom asked as they went out the next night, food in their usual box.

“Tripped,” technically he did. Sort of. 

When he was eleven, Alec learned about cat boxes. Plastic containers that could be remodelled into a temporary home for cats in cold weather. He spent all year finding and stealing plastic boxes, cutting holes out of them, buying blankets, stealing the ones that had holes in them or were destroyed from demon blood.

It was easier setting those out than going out with food. All they had to do was check on the boxes every other day and change the food and milk out, sometimes Alec catching a few snoozing cats when he did so. 

When he was twelve, Alec scrapped the cat box idea and went back to feeding them by hand. Near the end of last winter, they’d found one of their boxes missing, taken off with the rest of the trash. Not knowing whether there was a cat still in there or not haunted Alec for months. 

It was the third week of winter. The air was just starting to freeze, the water under their feet frosting over, when Jace came to stay with them and Alec was sent to live with Ragnor Fell. Rescued, was more accurate. Or what Ragnor called it. But the pain of being separated from his family didn’t make it feel like a rescue some days. 

He didn’t even remember what had sparked the argument. He wasn’t even sure it was him that had enticed Robert’s eye in the first place. Things were said anyway. As soon as Alec’s door closed he heard every little thing Robert had kept to himself since the day Alec was born.

The disgust. The anger. The pain of knowing that Alec had snuck his way into his wife’s womb and denied him a real son. Nevermind that it wasn’t Alec’s fault it had happened. He was just the product of a night of terror. Robert needed someone to blame however. Blame for his marriage falling apart. For his wife choosing her son over him. For having to pretend that Alec, this deformed thing before him, was his son. 

Then Robert had noticed the magazine sticking out from beneath Alec’s bed. It wasn’t even his, was the funny part. Izzy had brought it in after he’d confessed in the middle of the night that it wasn’t funny her making all these jokes about Alec having a crush on a vampire, the one he told her about he saw on occasion when him and mom went to feed the cats. Izzy’d been trying to help. She’d also been morbidly curious herself and used her newly acquired invisibility rune to sneak into a mundane store and steal the first nude magazine she could find. They’d spent all afternoon making faces at the weird poses the models were making and Izzy was going to take it with her when she left. Except their mom had told them they needed to meet someone, Jace, and then dad and her started fighting and suddenly the magazine had all but slipped both of their minds. 

To this day, Alec didn’t think Robert would have taken it that badly if there had been women on it. He also didn’t think he’d have made such quick assumptions if Jace hadn’t brought up memories of just why Michael was no longer part of their lives.

But Jace was here. So was the magazine. So were the wings on Alec’s back.

So things happened, and the next thing Alec knew his mom was carrying him through the Institute, paraded on show like some kind of freak, to where Ragnor Fell was waiting. A warlock. Someone of Alec’s own kind that wouldn’t puncture his lung because he’d had a bad day.

Ragnor had seen him with all manner of cuts on him. He was the one who patched up Alec’s back when Robert decided he liked Alec enough to try and ‘fix’ him. To strip Alec of his mark and make it easier on both of them to pretend Alec was just another shadowhunter boy. So Ragnor had seen a lot, yet this time seemed to mean something else for him.

“No more,” he told Maryse, Alec’s head becoming heavy again as Ragnor’s hands worked magic inside of it. 

“I know,” Maryse agreed. “It’s not like I can hide him anymore either.”

It was hard to miss the look Ragnor shot to her, since he was right in front of Alec. “If that’s your priority then it’s a good thing I’m not letting you have any more say in this.” He turned back to Alec, fingers gentle as they wiped the blood and tears from his cheeks, “Everything’s going to be alright.”

No negotiation. No packing. As soon as Ragnor finished patching Alec up they were through a portal and into a cluttered house hidden in the highlands.

Ragnor was a much kinder man than dad.

He had patience in abundance, for one. A trait that would serve him well over the years. Alec didn’t pretend he wasn’t a difficult teen. He’d been uprooted from the only place he knew in a matter of minutes and made to learn a whole new life. He was still a kid, for all of the twelve years he thought made him an adult. Shadowhunters aged quicker than mundanes. Quicker than warlocks too. If he had been back at the Institute, Alec would have been an adult in some respects. He could have had his runes, he could train and go on supervised patrols. 

But Alec wasn’t at the Institute, and it was hard for him to understand why. The screaming matches he had at Ragnor over that were infinite. By screaming he meant Alec doing the screaming. Ragnor never once raised his voice. Not about this. He’d just wait for Alec to finish and ask what he wanted. Why he was upset.

“If you want to learn how to fight then I’ll gladly find you a tutor,” Ragnor said.

Alec didn’t think he was being serious. Why would he want Alec to learn how to fight? So Alec had said yes, and the next thing he knew he was being introduced to a few friends of Ragnor’s who had studied all manner of fighting techniques in their long lives. 

It helped. Kind of. He felt like he’d be able to keep up when he went back home anyway. Then when he remembered he wasn’t going back home it sparked more anger. More questions about why he couldn’t leave.

When Alec said that, Ragnor took them out. He showed Alec all around their home, around England and Scotland and Wales and wherever else on this tiny island he thought of. He showed Alec that he was welcome to leave, to explore and have fun. That he wasn’t a prisoner here, which made Alec even angrier because he wasn’t a prisoner at home. He wasn’t! His mom didn’t let him out for a reason, and a good reason, and no amount of trying to show her up was going to win Alec over. 

Other things riled him up too. Little things like his food being too nice, which got a laugh out of Ragnor who didn’t understand that Alec liked the chewy, gritty stuff, it was familiar to him and Izzy needed someone to practice her experiments on or else she was never going to get better. Then there was his bed. It was too soft, and when Ragnor fixed it, yes, it was better, it meant Alec could sleep at night without suffocating on his front, but it wasn’t the same. The quilt was heavier here to block out the British cold. The room creaked at night as the house settled, there was a smell of cooking and potions instead of the usual sterile halls. 

It was all just wrong.

But mostly, Alec confessed one night, curled up under Ragnor’s arm after having yelled at him again, “I miss Izzy.”

She was the only one who hadn’t cared. When she was younger she used to pull his feathers out and pretend she had wings too. She couldn’t tell anyone, it was a secret and all, but she made Alec feel that little less alone when she’d ask to see them after bedtime. Then when she found out he maybe didn’t like girls she hadn’t laughed at him. She’d said sorry and got them that magazine. She told him she was always going to tell him about her boyfriends because Alec knew he was never going to have one of his own. 

She didn’t care. 

She was nice and sweet and the best person Alec had ever met and he was never going to see her again. Except, “Is that what this has been about?” Ragnor’s arm tightened around his shoulders, “Alec, I never said you couldn’t speak to your family. There’s a perfectly good phone around here somewhere. And you can write letters. She can even come here if you like for a visit sometime.”

“She can?” he sniffed quietly.

“Of course she can. So can your mother too and your brother. I just…” he sighed, “Alec, answer me this seriously, do you really want to go back there?”

Yes, was his immediate answer.

Except… “I don’t know.” And he hated himself for not knowing.

Ragnor leaned himself away, shuffling down a little until he could look Alec in the eye, “You understand what Robert did to you was wrong, don’t you?”

“But-” he was trying to help. The other times anyway. This time, this time he was just doing what any other good shadowhunter father would do and warn Alec that things like having a magazine full of naked boys when he was a boy himself was wrong. 

“Did it hurt?” Ragnor pressed.

That Alec could nod at.

“Then it was wrong,” Ragnor insisted. “You should never be hurt like that. Especially over something so stupid.”

He didn’t know whether Ragnor knew the reason for the last blow up, but the times before that, the times Ragnor had seen “He was helping me.”

“Whoever told you that was wrong Alec,” Ragnor said, interrupting before Alec could start again with, “Do you see me trying to get my horns off?”

Not really. In all the time Alec had been here he’d never once tried to get them off. Or change his skin colour. In fact, he often went unglamoured through the streets when they went exploring. Still, “You’re not a shadowhunter though.” He didn’t have to pretend to be normal.

Except, “You’re not a shadowhunter either Alec. And I don’t want my horns off because I don’t need them off. They’re a part of who I am, just like your wings are a part of you. We’re special, and that’s a good thing, and I know you’re still young, but I want you to understand that you never need to be ashamed of what you are. Warlock, vampire, shadowhunter, it doesn’t matter so long as you’re a good person. We often can’t choose what we are Alec, but we can choose who we are and,” he sighed, tilting Alec’s chin again until they were eye to eye, “Alec I was scared of who you might become if you stayed there. A lot has happened to Robert through the years, and your mother, I know, can weather him better when she doesn’t have to worry about you.”

“She doesn’t have to worry about me,” Alec huffed. He was twelve. He knew the rules and he followed them to the letter. If anyone, she should be worried about Izzy. Or Max. Max was a baby, and they always needed worrying about. 

“But she does,” Ragnor said, “Every second you’re around Robert she worries about you and I worry about you too.” He seemed to come to a decision as he wound his arm around Alec once more. “You can hate me all you like if you want. But I hope over the years you’ll come to see I did what was best for you.”

Alec didn’t think so. Not there, still hating everything about this new arrangement. So he didn’t say anything, and when he didn’t magically find himself back at the Institute again Alec asked, “Can I write to Izzy then?”

He patted Alec gently on the head, “I’ll go fetch some paper.”

Things got a little better once he got his first letter back from Izzy. It meant that Ragnor had kept his promise. That Alec could, indeed, talk to his family. It also meant he could trust Ragnor a little more since he hadn’t, say, hidden Alec’s letter and told him that his family didn’t want to write to him. 

The phone call was better. Hearing his sisters voice made him feel like maybe there was hope he could see her again. If not, he could always listen to her rattle on over the line. 

Ragnor didn’t give him a time limit either. In fact sometimes Alec would come downstairs from Ragnor’s study and ask if Izzy was busy since they hadn’t been talking for long. 

It wasn’t always Izzy. Sometimes, if he was lucky, his mom would come on the line and ask after him. She’d tell him all about her day at the Institute, ask if Ragnor was treating him right. The cats she’d go out and feed so Alec didn’t have to worry about them starving over winter. However, mostly she’d talk about Jace. Alec didn’t know whether it was because she didn’t know what to say or because Jace wasn’t what she expected but she wouldn’t shut up about him. Jace beat Izzy in training today. Well Jace is learning a new advanced form. They’re maybe thinking about putting Jace on supervised patrols a year early. Jace, Jace, Jace. 

The final straw was when his mom told him dad had taken Jace to pick out his first weapon. A seraph blade. 

“I wanna go home!” Alec announced when he was done. “I wanna go home now. Right now. You said I wasn’t a prisoner, well I want to go home.”

Ragnor set his book down, letting out a quiet, “Alec-”

“No! Now. Please,” there, he was polite about it.

That infinite wisdom reared its head again, Ragnor asking, “Why do you want to go home Alec?”

“Because.” he didn’t need to give a reason. He shouldn’t have to have a reason for wanting to go home. It was home. It was where he lived. Not here in the middle of nowhere Scotland. 

Ragnor pushed one of the chairs over to him, “Why don’t you tell me why you want to go home and we’ll talk about it.”

“No.” He wasn’t going to sit down. He wasn’t. “Every time we talk about it, I don’t get to go home. I’m sick of being here and you said I wasn’t locked up here.”

“I did,” Ragnor agreed tiredly, that chair creeping closer to Alec. “Which is why we need to talk about it. You were perfectly happy yesterday running the fields, what’s changed?”

“Nothing.”

“Alec-”

“Nothing. Forget it!” He went to his room, grabbing the clothes Ragnor had conjured for him a few hours after the two had arrived here. He was leaving. He didn’t need Ragnor’s permission. He could walk to the nearest village, and he’d spent enough hours in his lesson to know the basics of driving in case a demon was around and he needed a quick escape. From there, all he had to do was get on a plane and then find his way back from there. 

Easy.

Izzy would be so happy to see him. Mom too. They’d probably be so happy they wouldn’t care that he wasn’t a shadowhunter. They’d let him pick out a weapon and go on hunts and maybe not get his first rune because the runes burned him, but he could definitely join training again. 

He’d show them. He’d been learning while he’d been here, he could definitely keep up. He could probably take Jace too. All Alec’s tutors said his form was perfect.

He shouldered his bag, struggling under the weight of it for a moment before walking downstairs and out the front door.

Ragnor didn’t try to stop him. He probably knew Alec was right. That he didn’t need to give an explanation about why he wanted to go home because giving an explanation in the first place was stupid. 

So Alec walked. He switched his shoes out at one point, his sneakers getting stuck in too much mud. But his wellies ended up slipping on some of the bigger rocks when he had to get down them. He bashed his knee after one slip, the whole thing scraped as he just stopped himself from tumbling the rest of the way down and probably breaking a bone.

He wiped his eyes, grabbing one of his socks out of his bag and tying around his knee just in case the bleeding got worse. The pain, however, he could do nothing about, and ended up limping when he got back to solid land. 

It got dark quickly. The wind was cold here too and Alec didn’t like some of the noises that sounded in the shadows. He should have brought a knife. God he was so stupid. What shadowhunter forgot their weapons.

_ No shadowhunter at all _ answered him, Alec telling it to shut up as he kept walking.

His bag got on his nerves, bounce, bounce, bouncing against his side. But he couldn’t put it on his back because of his stupid wings meaning it kept bouncing and would keep on bouncing until he put it down. 

He heaved it up, pushing back the tears. Izzy would be happy to see him, he told himself. His mom too. He was doing the right thing.

He heaved his bag up again, his leg giving way slightly as he hit another patch of uneven ground.

His wellies slipped again, Alec bashing his arm on his way down. He didn’t pick his bag up again, staying where he landed, his knee and arm throbbing so much he couldn’t stop his eyes from watering. “Stop, stop,” he tried wiping them away but more kept coming, “Stop.” Shadowhunters didn’t cry. Not because they’d fallen over. His mom never cried when she came home covered in cuts so Alec wouldn’t. 

He wouldn’t.

His wings brushed his arm as they tried to curl over him, “Stop,” he told them, pushing them back. But they were a part of him, and Alec was cold and hurt and sad and they came back again. “Go away,” he snapped, tugging on one of them until his back hurt. He kept tugging, the pain getting worse until he had to stop, begging them one last time to just, “Go away.”

In the empty hills of the highlands Alec screamed, one quick burst of sound that ended with him letting his wings engulf him, his bag forgotten by his side. 

He wasn’t a shadowhunter. His mom would probably send him back to Ragnor if she did see him. He didn’t belong there. Never had. Dad had spelled it out for him plain and simple, he was a monster. Nothing more than a demon that had killed his real son and replaced him. He was better off staying here. Here he wouldn’t hurt Izzy, he wouldn’t make his mom worry. They had Jace now too, and Max. They were- they were okay without him.

He stayed curled up like that until his shakes were from the cold, his front okay, but his back where the feathers didn’t cover was getting too chilled to be comfortable. 

He struggled up, grabbing another sock to tie around his arm. It was only as he picked up his bag did Alec realise he had no idea where he was. His nose twitched as a fresh wave of tears threatened to well up. 

It was okay, he could figure this out. He’d come from the North, so, all he had to do was go back there. Right? But, he’d taken a few turns as well to avoid streams. 

“Need some help Alexander?” asked from behind him.

Alec whipped around, wishing more than ever that he wasn’t so stupid as to not bring a weapon. Except, “You?” It was the vampire from New York. The one who always looked miserable. What was he doing in Scotland?

If he was here.

Demons could shapeshift after all. He stepped back, his welly slipping again. The vampire caught him before he fell back on his butt, taking his bag off him. “Ragnor called me and said you’d ran off. You’re lucky wolves aren’t the only ones with a good nose.”

Oh. Still, “Prove it?”

The vampire blinked, “Prove what?”

Alec yanked his hand out of the vampire’s grip, “Prove you’re really a vampire and not a demon.” Demons couldn’t know everything about someone. Right?

“Wh-” the vampire’s eyes squinted before he said, “Er, I… I don’t know what you want.”

“Well that sucks for you since I’m not going with you then.” He sat down, carefully moving to the edge of the rock and sliding down it. 

“Oh for-” 

Alec found himself grabbed again, the vampire taking one of his wings and yanking on it with enough strength to lift him back up. “Ow! Let me go!”

“Nu uh, I told Ragnor I’d bring you home and I’m bringing you home.”

He lashed out, slapping his other wing onto the vampire’s hand, and using the shock of it to jump back to where he’d been. The vampire had speed however, even if he was a demon, and easily caught up to Alec, the two of them tussling until the vampire had Alec slung over his shoulder.

It was a long way back. Alec would manage to get the upper hand, run a few feet, then the vampire would catch him again and they’d walk back up the steep mountainous terrain. Alec thought every time it happened would be the last time he’d get to breathe, that this time the vampire would give up the facade and turn into a demon to kill him.

But he didn’t, and before long the familiar lights of Ragnor’s home was in sight, meaning that this time, when Alec broke free, he sprinted towards it instead of away. “Ragnor!” he called, the door opening seconds after. Alec had never been so happy to see the warlock in his life. “I think it’s a demon, he tried to drag me off and-”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Ragnor soothed, “I asked him to come. He’s a friend.”

But Alec had never heard of them talking before. 

He was led inside, the vampire, known as Raphael not far behind him pulling up his shirt to see the cuts Alec had made. Speaking of injuries, Alec was forced to sit, feeling kind of foolish when he saw Raphael did look kind of friendly with Ragnor.

He tried to cover up his scrapes a bit more as Ragnor fetched the disinfectant. Raphael rolled his eyes at him, “Warlock blood tastes disgusting. You’re fine. Should have guessed that first night there was something off about you.”

Alec’s face flushed, so there was something wrong with his blood then. They could tell there was something up with him. 

Ragnor took Alec’s socks off, the scratches not so bad in the firelight. “I’m sorry,” Alec told Raphael.

“It’s fine,” Raphael waved off, taking the sofa, Although I told you not to go wandering around on your own.”

He kept silent as Ragnor healed him up, not really knowing what to do with himself. The other two didn’t seem too bothered, filling up the silence with tidbits of their lives they thought important to the other. Then Raphael yawned and Ragnor portalled him back to New York where he’d probably called Raphael from. 

“I’m sorry,” Alec said when the portal closed. Ragnor had woke a vampire up for him. 

“I know,” Ragnor said, coming to sit in the chair nearest Alec’s. “I’m just glad you’re safe. What you did Alec-”

“Was stupid, I know. I just, mom keeps talking about Jace and dad took him to get his first real weapon and they’re replacing me. They’re replacing me with Jace and I don’t want to be replaced.  _ They’re gonna forget me, _ ” Alec whispered. “They’re already forgetting me. Pretty soon mom’s not gonna want to phone me and then Izzy will realize how much better Jace is because I’m not there anymore and-” he wiped his eyes, “and Izzy’s only eleven and Max is even younger and Max won’t even know who I am and dad- why doesn’t he like me?”

“Oh Alec,” Ragnor pulled him into a hug. 

“I try so hard.”

“I know.”

It was a long night, and Alec wasn’t completely off the hook for running away. Ragnor had him sorting books all day by ordering them alphabetically by potion. He sat Alec down too when evening came and went over some things he said he should have done when Alec first arrived.

The first being the directions to the nearest town. “In case you run off again. I don’t like the idea, but I’d feel better knowing you actually know how to get somewhere you can call me if you want to come home.”

Home. Like this was home.

They went over other things. About warlocks and just why dad was having a hard time accepting Alec. Adult things like consent and rape that left Alec feeling sick and sent his skin crawling when he thought about how he was created. Ragnor tried to be gentle about it. “I shouldn’t even have had to broach this topic like this. But Maryse mentioned she heard Robert say some things you probably have questions about.”

He did have questions. Ones with awful answers. 

He didn’t sleep that night. Instead he spent it in front of the fire wishing Robert had gotten the son he wanted. That Alec could just not exist. 

How did his mom not hate him too?

Ragnor had to have another talk with him that morning about how stupid that line of thought was. Alec was born, that was all there was to it. There was nothing that could change it, and just because he’d been created unnaturally did not mean he was wrong. “Your mother loves you,” he insisted. 

He didn’t know about that. 

But he tried to believe it. 

Time went on. Alec got a little older, thirteen. He got presents for his birthday, which were practical if a little informal. The only people to get him something genuine were Izzy and Ragnor. Izzy sent him a stuffed raven, said the wings reminded her of him, while Ragnor fitted him for his first suit, saying every young man needed one. 

Raphael’s gift came a little late, Alec surprised he was even getting one until he opened it and found a compass inside. Raphael had even gotten it engraved:  _ in case you get lost _ . It made Alec feel all tingly to see it. He tried to keep it on him, asking Ragnor to teach him how to use it. 

It was a few months after his fourteenth birthday when Ragnor broached a topic Alec never thought he’d have to think about. Magic.

“I don’t want to learn magic,” he knew.

Ragnor’s mouth twitched, twisting a little like Robert’s did when he got angry. But Ragnor didn’t yell at him, instead he nodded and left Alec to following his compass around the grounds again.

He should have known Ragnor wasn’t leaving it alone. Magic was important to Ragnor. Important to a warlock, Ragnor said, so obviously he wanted Alec to learn. He just got a little sneaky about it. 

It started with them running out of food in the cupboards. A little hint about how conjuring could be used to solve that issue and Alec was considering it. Especially when he thought about the fact the food didn’t have to be native to where they were staying. He could conjure up a New York sub. 

Then they started running out of other things, Ragnor liking the house to get a little empty before taking Alec on a supply run, if he went out for one, usually he’d just magick it. Body wash, shampoo, all things Alec sort of needed at this tender age of sweating constantly. 

The hints of conjuring what he liked kept coming. A new bed, maybe, for his room. Something simpler, maybe a calendar so Alec could track the months. 

It was only when Alec stumbled on Ragnor scrutinising a photo Raphael had sent of himself showcasing a new set of bruises courtesy of Camille and asking for his opinion on whether to depose her yet that Alec realised he could conjure other things. More… explicit things. Secret things he could hide just as well with magic as conjuring them. 

He was sorely tempted after that. 

“Okay,” he sighed, leaning over the back of the sofa Ragnor was on, “just conjuring though.”

“Just conjuring,” Ragnor agreed, grabbing Alec’s usual chair and making him sit.

They went over theory for weeks. Alec had never known magic had so much in it. There weren’t laws per se, but there were limits for people, and different ways to unlock a power or piece of magic. For some people, it was a verbal incantation, for others a wave of their hands or a specific movement. Then there were those who needed none of those and could simply do it with a blink or a thought. Very powerful people Alec were told, and believed when Alec was told himself to try and conjure something into existence.

“Should’ve started with levitation,” Ragnor sighed, and not for the first time, as he lay there watching Alec stare intently at the low table. 

“I don’t want to learn levitation,” Alec said, leaning a little higher onto his knees. He took another breath, visualising the object he wanted to appear. Nothing too big, just a new pair of sneakers. 

It took days. Days of Alec going back over the theory, of sitting there staring at nothing, visualising the sneakers into existence. Then something made sense in his mind and he realised he’d been focusing on the wrong thing. He’d been thinking about the sneakers in the store, not bringing them from the store to here. Bracing his hands on the table, Alec thought about the sneakers moving, about them travelling faster than the mundanes could see to where he was. He thought about their shape, their texture, everything that made them sneakers and bringing them here. There was a tug in his gut, and he knew before opening his eyes that they were there. 

“I did it!” They were the wrong size but, “I did it Ragnor.”

“You did,” Ragnor cheered, making Alec do it again and again until he had a firm grip on his new magic. 

He’d never felt as independent as he did knowing he could conjure what he liked. Ragnor set ground rules, of course, and Alec heeded them because he wasn’t an idiot. But he still used his newfound power whenever the want for something arose. Like, say, his favourite snack from home. Or some of those cookies Ragnor liked to say sorry for accidentally breaking his vase when Alec was practicing his forms. 

Mostly he used it in the dead of night, lying on his floor because the bed squeaked too much and staring at images of guys he’d found hilarious last year posing lewdly until he was done. He was thirteen after all and certain things were being awakened. 

A few months after that, as Alec was exploring the wonders of archery, Ragnor proposed maybe learning some spells that could help him make his own bow. “Really?”

“It would be a special bow,” Ragnor said, “One that, maybe, you could enchant to only work for yourself. Or you could make the arrows always fly true. The possibilities are endless. Even if you wanted to use it to help make the wood sturdier or unbreakable.”

Simple things that, as Alec did try and make his own bow, he started considering. 

“Fine,” he huffed as the last bow he tried to make broke under his hands. “But only a few spells to strengthen the bow. I want to get good at archery without magic.”

Ragnor agreed, and as such Alec’s magical education began. Ragnor always made excuses and arguments for why learning this such spell was good in the long run. Cuts. Scrapes. Broken bones, there were potions to help with all those. Fire balls. Invisible shields. They could come in handy in a fight if he didn’t have any weapons on him, Alec didn’t want to find himself helpless against a demon again did he? Even if it did turn out to be the real Raphael Santiago.

So Alec learned them. They dedicated hours in the morning to learning magic. To introduce him to it until he found himself sitting there without excuses because learning magic was something he was privileged enough to be able to learn. He didn’t find it fun. Not always. But it was interesting, he had to give it that.

It also beat trying to fly, something he found he’d been unable to do these past few months. 

Puberty was awful. 

He sort of hoped he’d bypass it all and magically find himself an adult one day. But Ragnor told him that wasn’t possible for anyone, so Alec was stuck on the slow path with the rest of the other thirteen year olds. 

He ached. He ached in places he didn’t even know he could ache. His legs, his arms, his wings, his neck, why did his neck ache? What was this? 

Then there was the smell. He’d never smelled this bad when he was twelve. Every time he took a shower it felt like he’d just stepped outside the door and he was smelling again. His windows were constantly open in his room so Ragnor wouldn’t make a comment. 

He thought Ragnor would, God knows Alec thought himself a mess, but Ragnor just wasn’t bothered. Or if he was he was good at not showing it. Even when Alec’s voice broke he kept his comments to himself and asked instead of Alec would like something soothing to put on his aching joints. 

The worst were the erections. It was fun, at first, after the panic of just why he was suddenly wetting the bed like a toddler was out of the way. 

Then the frustration kicked in. He couldn’t jerk off every second of the day, but his dick certainly seemed to think so. It literally only took a stray breeze before he was cursing his very existence and hoping to God Ragnor was still too busy painting to realise Alec was curling his wings around himself for a purpose.

His room had never smelled so bad, but Alec couldn’t stop himself from reaching down every night, from conjuring some latest issue of a porn magazine and sweating it out. It was a never ending cycle that didn’t seem to be getting any better anytime soon. 

He tried, once, to see if he reacted the same for girls as he did for boys. God knows he was curious. He’d always known, when he was younger, that girls just… he didn’t know, appeal? To him? Something like that. With Raphael he’d put it down to a crush because everyone with eyes could see Raphael was good looking. Even Izzy had agreed when he sent her a photo of him in case she ran into him on her new supervised patrols. So, when it came down to his nightly activities he’d just went with what was natural and what came to mind first. Namely the magazine Izzy had snuck to him a year ago. Every time he did… that, however, he kept hearing some of the things dad said to him. 

So Alec thought maybe tonight he’d have a little change. He conjured different magazines, he stuck his hand down his pants and didn’t have a problem with it.

Until he did. 

He couldn’t really describe it. It wasn’t so much off putting looking at the girls in the magazine as it was that his mind kept warping them. It made their chests flatter, it downright told him not to look further than the waist. 

It was frustrating. Getting more so when he forced himself to look and look properly and- “Come on,” he just lost interest altogether. 

He looked down his body like it had betrayed him since, well, it had. 

This couldn’t be happening.

Needless to say that was a hard period of Alec’s life. Ragnor’s too. Alec had never felt so wrong in his existence and it just kept getting worse. 

Ragnor seriously deserved a medal for putting up with Alec that year. But he weathered it, and showed Alec that there was nothing he had to be ashamed of. That Ragnor knew more than one person who was like Alec, that he wasn’t alone in the world. 

It was something Alec hadn’t known he needed until he got it, and it helped. Not at first. But later, once he’d calmed down enough to listen to what Ragnor was telling him, it helped.

Fourteen was okay. Fifteen brought about more puberty, but it also had Izzy in it too. She finally had a break in her studies, meaning Ragnor was portalling her to Scotland for a week. A full week. He’d never been so happy to see her as he was when she was dragging her suitcase through the portal, Ragnor following behind with another heavy bag and a bemused look on his face. 

“Alec!” She’d grown. Not much in height but in looks. Her hair was longer, her body had filled out more, with muscle clinging to her from hours of training. She looked good. Healthy. Happy. “It’s so good to see you. I have your birthday present. I would have sent it with the others but when mom said I could come over I wanted to give it to you in person.” 

It was a good week. 

He showed Izzy all around the grounds, and because she was thirteen, not fifteen like him, she still wanted to play pretend, the two of them exploring the vast green fields like shadowhunters on their first hunt before Ragnor called them in for supper. She liked her room. The bed especially, Izzy always one for comfort. Since he wouldn’t let her in his, namely because he had a bit of a mess in there with all the sheets he was getting up the courage to wash, they often ended up sitting in the hallway when she knocked on his door to talk in the middle of the night. 

She didn’t mention Jace at all that week, for which he was grateful. She seemed to be the only one that had picked up on Alec’s dislike for the Wayland boy. Their mom certainly still sang his praises whenever they talked. 

She liked Ragnor too. She wasn’t mean to him, or demeaning. Instead Alec watched as she surprised him during their morning lessons to ask if she could sit in on them. She often ended up doing her nails or looking up something else in Ragnor’s extensive library, but she made an effort to behave and respect Ragnor whenever he was talking. 

“So tea is just a drink, you guys don’t actually have a specific time for tea?” Izzy asked as they sat outside the waning autumnal sun. 

Ragnor poured her another cup, all of them dressed their best as Izzy insisted they have a proper English tea party. “Well in certain parts it’s usually what they use instead of dinner. But no, I’m afraid there is no designated time for tea in our daily schedule.”

Izzy looked a little miffed about that, asking Ragnor about other things she’d heard that she wanted debunked afterwards.

The week had to come to an end at some point. The night before Alec helped Izzy sort all of her clothes back into her suitcase, thinking about how much nicer it had been to have her around again. He wasn’t embarrassed to admit Izzy was his best friend. Maybe some people weren’t supposed to have their sister as their friend but Alec had never lived an ordinary life. Besides, if they’d met Izzy they’d want her as their best friend too. 

It was probably why, the next morning, just after she left, Alec couldn’t help resenting Ragnor a little for keeping him here. Izzy was blood. She was family and she was allowed to go home. Yet here Alec was, exiled into the wilds of Scotland because he was some freak of nature. 

It took a while to make himself get back into his studies. 

Sixteen came and went fairly uneventful.

Seventeen he grew again which was awful. Just plain awful. He’d finally been able to glide again and now he was grounded, stuck watching the sky, wishing he could just go up there and fly off to somewhere new. He’d never practiced archery so much in his life than he did at seventeen.

Eighteen found him in his first pub, Ragnor clinking their glasses together as Alec tried beer for the first time. 

Not the best. 

Eighteen was also the year he was invited to his first party. “And there’s going to be how many…?”

“Around fifty,” Ragnor said, holding two suits in front of him. “As the old high warlock I have to pass the baton, and since I don’t trust you to not burn the house down-”

“One time,” he was making pasta, for Ragnor he might add.

“-You’ll be accompanying me. It’s high time you were introduced to the warlocks anyway. You never know, you might make a friend.”

Unlikely. If they didn’t hate him for being part shadowhunter they’d look down on him for his age. To warlocks, eighteen was practically a baby. Alec heard warlocks weren’t even considered fully mature until they’d passed their two hundredth birthday. Meaning Ragnor was going to get all the attention, being ancient and all. “I don’t get it, you’ve not been high warlock in years, why are they asking you to ‘pass the baton’?”

Ragnor hummed, deciding on the grey, “Because we’ve not exactly had a new high warlock of london. Not for a while anyway. There’s been a bit of a disagreement about the post for a while. All those American warlocks think it’s ridiculous for Britain to have more than one high warlock, like size means anything. So the position has been open and now sadly closed.”

“Sadly?”

Ragnor shrugged, “I may have been hoping for a joust.”

A joust? Sometimes Alec wondered what era these people lived in. 

He was forced to dress nice anyway. He even combed his hair. Not that it made much of a difference. As soon as they stepped foot into the new high warlock of london’s home all eyes were on Ragnor, and Alec may as well have been the umbrella stand. 

Not that he wanted to be the centre of attention. He just didn’t want to be looked down on. Like they were doing now as Ragnor introduced him. 

“Eighteen?” One of the women pulled a face at, looking him over again. She’d been interested before, looks like Alec had one thing to thank his age for now. “Well, I’m sure he’ll be just as yummy in a few hundred years.

“They know I’m right there, right?” Alec asked as they walked off.

Ragnor waved him off, another warlock quickly intercepting to introduce himself. 

The dinner was even worse. Alec was delegated to the kids table. The literal kids table. There was a seven year old sitting next to him and a twelve year old across. They were literally the only ones there. 

He didn’t care, the kids were better conversationalists than the adults anyway. Alec even played the twelve year old in a game of blackjack, winning the kids candy bar after a few failed hands. 

“Alec,” Ragnor shook his head when he saw Alec eating the chocolate on their way home.

“What? He lost.”

“That tiny warlock?”

“I’m a tiny warlock,” To those guys anyway. Even if he was taller than half of them.

Ragnor stole half of his bar.

They were walking back from the party. Well, they were in Scotland, taking the long walk home from the village to Ragnor’s home, when Alec happened to feel something tugging on his feathers. A ginger beast stared back at him, his nose squashed in and fur matted. Oh. “Hey little guy.”

There were a few others now he knew what to look for. The little shadows that darted around the walls, the gardens and trash cans. Guess he hadn’t thought there were cats all over. An idiotic thought, maybe, since of course there were cats everywhere. But, he’d had other things on his mind, and, in the grand scheme of things, getting back home had overpowered his common sense.

It got cold up in Scotland. 

“Don’t suppose there’s shelters in the highlands huh?” Alec asked, not recalling seeing one near their home at least.

“There’s around three,” Ragnor remembered. “One of my friends set one up actually. But, they’re all around half an hour away.” He gave Alec a long look, “Your mother said you were quite fond of helping them when you were younger.”

Alec bet Raphael had told a few stories too. “I just don’t like the idea of them getting hurt.” Or being alone. Dogs were easier to catch than cats, and dogs had more people willing to adopt them than cats too. Alec had seen the statistics, he’d seen the shelters, he knew which animal was overcrowding more than the other. 

Ragnor hummed at him, and didn’t really look all that surprised when Alec started drifting over to the village and conjuring up food for the cats. 

He looked at cat boxes again too. Older now, and without the dumpsters that littered New York, Alec thought maybe Scotland could handle a few. He just had to make them a little more obvious than plastic boxes. 

“What about wood?” Alec asked, sketching out a plain box with a hole down the bottom.

“Can I paint it?” Ragnor countered. He didn’t seem to care what Alec did so long as it wasn’t dangerous. 

“I guess.” 

“In that case,” Ragnor took the sketch for a moment, making a few amendments before the box Alec had sketched out had been changed to a tiny looking house, complete with roof. “It’s still a box, but if we glue windows and a chimney on people will think it more decoration than a colourful wooden structure.”

He had a point, and it meant Alec had more to work on, which, considering he usually finished his lessons around three in the afternoon, was a good thing. 

He ended up asking Ragnor to portal them to a DIY store to have a look at the lumber. He didn’t have a clue which to use, and spent an hour asking a very confused clerk about which would be light enough to work with but sturdy enough to keep out the winter winds. 

He still had all his tools from when he was making his own bow, and since he still carved his own arrows they were sharp enough he didn’t have to spend hours looking for a file. Ragnor sometimes watched him. Especially when it was sunny out, or not as cloudy, and he’d tired of harassing his friends over the phone. Sometimes he’d bring his sketchbook out, Alec catching brief pencil drawings of his wings, or, more often, the designs for the little cat houses Alec was making. He hadn’t even thought about painting them when he first thought about building proper ones, but, he had to admit, it was kind of cute some of the ideas Ragnor was thinking up.

They put straw inside instead of the blankets Alec had in New York. “This isn’t my first rodeo,” Ragnor told him when Alec asked why. “Trust me, the straw keeps the cold out better than a blanket.”

Alec believed him. Ragnor was hundreds of years old, and if he’d done this before then he probably knew what he was talking about. 

They littered the houses out not just in the village. A few nooks across the walk back to Ragnor’s they stopped to set one up. “For the badgers and foxes,” Ragnor explained. Alec hadn’t even thought about them.

He was happy to see, when he went to check on them, that none of them had been moved. In a few, in fact, the food had been switched out and the water refilled. He heard a few parents, too, mention something about keeping the faeries that lived inside those houses happy. The actual faeries that lived this close to Ragnor gave short thanks to Alec when they saw him. Nature preservationists Alec supposed. 

That, and in places like this, the fae folk were always taken seriously, and Alec bet they quite liked the reminder to the mundanes that there were mischievous things lurking in the dark still.

“How about we set some up down south next year?” Ragnor asked when Alec was left with nothing more to do. 

“South?” he supposed the south got cold too. Swindon was getting heavy snow fall this year. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Or,” Ragnor suggested, “We could always make some for New York. I know a man who’d be extremely happy to see some houses set up for the street cats.”

Alec’s immediate thought was Raphael. But, Raphael wasn’t one for feeding cats, save that one time Alec asked him to. Still, “Okay.” New York was worse than Britain, and Alec did like the idea of having a few around his old neighbourhood so his mom wouldn’t have to trail out every winter.

If she still trailed out. She always told him she did but Alec didn’t know if she was just saying that to make him feel better.

Except, they never got to New York. Not long after Alec turned twenty, most of his cat houses finished for the year, the disappearances started. 

It started with a child. Of all the people that could have been taken it was a child. An eight year old, to be exact, in Paris. She had been a warlock child, her demon mark long white hair, similar to Ragnor’s, as well as horns on her head. 

When Ragnor heard, Alec didn’t exactly know the name to place the look on his face. It wasn’t shock. Not exactly. Nor was it worry. It was pure devastation however. “She might have been my sister,” Ragnor said later when he was telling Alec the girl was most likely dead. “Often children of the same heritage shame similar demon marks. No doubt they would be unique to her,” since all warlock marks were unique, “but maybe…”

Alec had never thought about that. That there might be people out there related to him on his demon side. Alec supposed, once the mortal side ran out, anyone would be desperate enough to see family in complete strangers. 

Sadly, because demons rarely claimed their children, and that girl, like Ragnor said, was probably dead, they’d never know if she could have been his sister. 

The next was another child. A fourteen year old in Egypt. His warlock mark had been a tail, a cow one to be exact. One moment his caregiver had been bartering for apples, and the next she’d turned around and the child was gone.

The third was five. The fourth an infant, stolen from her cot. The fifth a fourteen year old from Sheffield. England. Only a few hours, really, from them. Growing up in the US, anywhere in England was a short drive for him, so the child, the one he’d won the candy bar from not even a year ago, going missing not far from him, that was scary. 

Ragnor thought so too. “They’re targeting children because they’re easier to take,” he said, hurrying Alec inside and closing the curtains. “No real magic. No way to defend themselves. I’m putting another tutor on your roster Alec. A mundane. No more warlocks.”

“You think they’re behind it?” Why would warlocks be taking their own kind?

“I think they’re not above turning a blind eye if it comes to their self preservation.” Which made more sense. “When you live as long as a warlock can, you come to value the expanse your years can offer. Children are born every day, what’s one or two missing here or there?”

It was a morbid way to look at things. But Warlocks, Alec had come to understand, were just like everyone else. There were good warlocks and bad warlocks. There were warlocks that would spend their whole lives helping others out of the kindness of their hearts. Then there were others only out for themselves who would, Alec admitted, sell a kid out for some gain, be it their life or money.

It was the fear of someone selling out Alec that eventually had Ragnor retracting his request for another tutor. In fact, all of Alec’s tutors were fired. If Alec wanted to train, he’d have to train by himself. Especially when the sixth victim was that seven year old, now eight that he had seen at the high warlock of london’s party. 

The wards were enforced. Alec even had to be careful about who he called. Never over video chat either. Voice calls only, and only to Izzy.

“Not even my mom?” Alec asked when Ragnor told him this new rule.

“Especially your mother Alec,” Ragnor said, rustling through his books for another protection spell. “There are things… things I’m not comfortable telling you, and your mother is involved in some of it. If circumstances get more dire, perhaps I’ll tell you, but for now, just trust me that phoning your mother is not a good idea.”

“You don’t trust her,” Alec summarised.

“I do,” Ragnor corrected. “It’s the company she keeps that I don’t.”

An ominous statement. Made more so when the next disappearance came from New York. This time it was a vampire. 

Raphael Santiago was around the day of the disappearance. He’d dropped in for his usual book club meeting, him and Ragnor sitting around, comparing how boring they’d found this recent mundane drivel while Alec subtly tried to still say sorry for maybe kicking him that one time when he was a kid. He brought blood and everything. 

Then the call came. 

Alec had spent years trying to weasel into their book club, and the moment Raphael asked Alec if he’d read what they were discussing the damn phone rang. 

Just his luck. 

A thought he would be regretting when Raphael asked to be immediately portalled back to New York. “Lily’s gone.”

It wouldn’t be until the next day that they heard just how she’d disappeared. It hadn’t been on the streets, taken from behind like someone would expect. Instead, she’d been sleeping in her room, someone had even checked on her, Lily telling them to fetch her some blood, then the next thing anyone knew she was gone. Disappeared between one fledgling leaving the room to returning. 

Whoever was doing this was fast and efficient. Vampires had heightened senses. If they hadn’t heard Lily leaving, which was something Alec was told vampires could tell, then this abductor was quiet.

Soundless.

Like a shadowhunter. There was a reason they had those runes after all. They were made to sneak up on downworlders with the highest senses in order to take them in. 

Suddenly not wanting Alec to speak to his mom made sense. 

More disappearances came about. Mermaids near the Russian coast. Brownies in Italy. Another warlock in New York. That one had Ragnor on the phone, dialling and dialling again until Cat, a woman Alec had met only once when she came to show Alec basic healing magic, picked up. The second person Ragnor called didn’t pick up at all. It worried Ragnor so much he told Alec to lock himself in his room, to keep his bow on him and shoot anything that wasn’t Ragnor as he left by portal to check on his other friend. 

Magnus Bane, whoever he was, had been attending a meeting at the Spiral Labyrinth when Ragnor called. He’d heard of the disappearance before word had spread and was trying to organise some sort of investigation. Alec was unsure whether Magnus ever got what he wanted.

By the time Alec was twenty one more than fifty downworlders had gone missing. It felt like the entire downworld was holding its breath, waiting for the next soul to go missing. Who would it be this time? A faerie? A werewolf? 

Never a shadowhunter, that was for sure. 

“Are you sure?” Izzy asked on the other line.

Ragnor was pacing in front of Alec, a book in hand as he tried to negotiate Raphael coming to stay with him instead of New York. He’d already struck out with Catarina and Magnus was a high warlock so he couldn’t leave. But Raphael was just a vampire. A young looking vampire that didn’t look as scrappy as he was. Anyone who passed him would think of going for him over his more volatile brothers and sisters. 

“Iz I’m telling you they’re gone. How do you not know this?” He’d told her about the first few. He’d told her about every single one Ragnor had informed him about even, and still Izzy couldn’t find their names on the database. It didn’t sit right with him. Did the downworlders just not report it? 

They had to have. Alec had heard Raphael tell Ragnor specifically that he’d talked to Robert himself about Lily’s disappearance. So then… that meant they simply weren’t writing it down. They weren’t doing their jobs.

“Maybe I’m just spelling it wrong. What was this last kids name?” he heard clicking, so Izzy, at least, was doing her job right.

“Thomas, T-H-O-M-A-S, Martin. It might have one of those accents above the ‘i’. I think he’s Spanish. He’s a warlock, fifteen years old, dark hair, brown eyes, quite short and has webbing on his fingers and toes.”

She typed all of that in, yet, “No. Not here. I don’t get it.”

“I do,” Alec sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” Izzy snapped, clicking again. “I’m putting a report in. You need to send me the other names. Someone needs to be looking out for these people.”

He loved Izzy. He didn’t know if she knew how much. She was the only one he could think of that would do all this extra work simply because it was right. He remembered when he was younger and staying at the Institute, how lazy some of the shadowhunters were. How they would delegate work to other people, new people, or just those that were being punished. How they would go out of their way to avoid certain parts of the city because a call had come in a few moments ago about a downworlder disturbance that they didn’t want to investigate. Unless it meant they could kill something, they didn’t care.

But Izzy. He didn’t know if it was because her brother was a warlock or if she’d always been this generous beautiful soul, but Izzy cared. She made a point to stay friendly with Ragnor, even if she told Alec, that first time she came over, that she had nightmares for weeks about Ragnor taking Alec away from her. She texted him, even if he pretended he didn’t know how to text back. She asked about Alec. About Ragnor, how he was, what exactly he was doing with Alec’s fluffy feathers when they molted. She made a point of being nice to other downworlders too. Like the knight that sometimes came to the Institute to collect the special flowers they grew in the greenhouse. Or the werewolves she’d see in the clubs she visited. She wasn’t too fond of the vampires. Simply because there were a few dicks in the New York clan that even Raphael was having trouble reigning in, and they often tried to enchant her into doing something she didn’t want to.

Alec didn’t deserve Izzy. Even if she thought the opposite. 

So Alec found the other names that Ragnor always wrote down and told her them. He gave descriptions, when he could. When he couldn’t, he told her their next of kin, who they were with when they disappeared and hoped with a visual on them they could get some information about the others.

It wasn’t nearly enough, but at least someone had sent the word out.

“Is Raphael coming?” Alec asked later, when Izzy had hung up and Ragnor had flung his phone down.

“He’s considering it. Which definitely means he’s scared.” Something, Alec thought, Raphael would never tell anyone but Ragnor, and that he was admitting it at all was terrifying. He had a poker face like no one else Alec had met.

“And Cat? Can’t you tell her there’s on call doctors in the highlands? It’s not like she’d be out of work,” so long as she portalled to and from the patient and maybe didn’t go alone.

Ragnor sighed, scrubbing his hand over his face, “She’s resolute in staying in New York. She’s worried about Magnus, I bet. Someone has to be.”

Which meant it was just him and Ragnor once more. 

For a while things were okay. Alec talked to Izzy, and Izzy told him about how she purposely went to downworlder only clubs these days to see if she could interrogate some information out of people. Mostly she spoke to clan leaders. “It’s okay if I use your name right?” Izzy made sure. “They seem to trust me more when they find out my brother’s a warlock.”

He swallowed heavily before pushing his pride aside. “Yeah,” this wasn’t about him. It was about innocent kids, and if Alec’s name got her anywhere on this then she could use it all she liked. “Just… just don’t mention the wings okay?” There was something about them that just attracted attention Alec had never liked.

“I’ll try,” she promised, changing the subject to what Max was up to these days. The little brother Alec had only met when he’d been an infant. She sent him photos, of course, but it wasn’t the same. 

It would never be the same, and that was just how Robert liked it Alec bet. 

He hung up before she was called for training, going outside himself to start his own workout. 

It was three weeks after that phone call, three weeks of Izzy making a stir in the downworld. Of phone calls to Alec about working with the high warlock to investigate the New York disappearances if not anywhere else. Of Ragnor on the phone with Cat and Raphael. It was three weeks of Alec confined to Ragnor’s home before Raphael agreed to come live with them. 

He had a bag slung over one shoulder and before he even set it down he told them, “They found the first body.”

It wasn’t the body of the first disappearance, the first warlock girl to go missing. It was a werewolf. The one that had gone missing in Finland in fact, that had been found with steel tipped poles driven through his body and skinned alive. 

No wonder Raphael had fled.

The bodies started piling up after that. Alec got out the shower, and a fire message was flying to Ragnor with news of another werewolf. He tried to do laundry, and a phone was going off about faeries turning up. Vampires, mermaids, warlocks, all their bodies eventually turned up, and none of them were alive, or looked like they hadn’t suffered.

The disappearances kept on happening too. More and more these days the phone went off with news of another downworlder. It was actually setting in, for Alec, that they were being targeted, that he, a warlock, was in actual danger. 

Then news of shadowhunters being behind it started spreading. Someone named Valentine was reappearing, finishing what he started. Alec had only heard that name briefly in passing during his childhood. Yet to Ragnor, even Raphael, the name meant something, and Alec found out what the day the seven year old he’d sat beside at the high warlock of london’s party turned up with runes etched into his skin and his warlock marks missing.

His mom. Alec had always thought when he heard the story of how he was created, that the demon had chosen his mother for a joke, or just to see if he could. Demons and Nephilim didn’t mix. Usually, the child was stillborn, if it even made it to that stage, and for all his life up until that moment Alec had just thought he’d gotten lucky. That was what Robert used to tell him. That he was lucky to be alive. Lucky that his mother hadn’t done what she should have when Alec had come out with wings attached to his back. What she’d wanted to do, Robert used to tell him, always looking at Alec’s pillow, Alec not sure if he was even trapped in a memory sometimes or if he was considering just pushing it on Alec’s face and being done with it. 

But it hadn’t been luck. “I can’t believe this,” Alec said.

“Believe it,” Raphael said in that deadpan way he said everything. “Your parents were two of the worst shadowhunters I encountered.”

Ragnor cleared his throat before Raphael could follow that up, “What he means is that they were very devoted to Valentine’s cause.”

Valentine. The shadowhunter that had wanted to change the world. To eradicate demons from this plane of existence forever, and somehow got it into his head that those with demon blood needed to go too. Meaning downworlders. 

“They used to hunt us for sport-”

“Raphael,” Ragnor warned. 

“They did. Remember the Tuesday runs? I’m certainly not looking forward to them. Although I have to admit I think I’m fast enough to break my record.”

Just the thought that he had a record to begin with was laughable. All of this was laughable. But Alec didn’t laugh because if he started he wouldn’t be able to stop. He believed wholeheartedly that what they were telling him was true. It just, it made sense. He could easily see them joining a group like the Circle. He could see his parents using their skills as shadowhunters, not to protect the downworlders who needed help just like everyone else, but to kill them. To make a game of it. To- to hang trophies on their walls.

“Dad took me to Idris once. The old Lightwood manor actually,” Alec remembered. “Mom had been thrilled, said we’d get some family bonding done.” She’d hoped Robert would start including Alec in his trips with Isabelle. Maybe take him out once in a while for new clothes or new toys. “He made a point of giving me a tour, showing me weird things like lamps and rugs and stuff. There was a whole room in the manor that he made me pay special attention to. There were eyes and wings and stuff. I thought they were from demons.” It had still scared him, to sit and be surrounded by things that had once been in hell. “But demons disintegrate, don’t they.” 

Warlock marks. They’d been warlock marks. 

Alec thought, at the time, he was gloating, showing Alec what he could never have. Alec could never hunt this many demons. He could never hold a seraph blade and be a real hunter. Only now, at twenty years of age, did Alec realise it hadn’t been gloating. God, he’d probably been sizing Alec up, deciding which wall to put him on. “He put me on one of the tables. It used to lean against the wall. I thought he was giving me a closer look.” He’d stood right between a pair of horns, he remembered. One of them curled inwards like a bull, while the others were small, childlike, almost. 

Alec felt sick. 

Especially when he remembered his mom was part of that group. Did she have a room like that in the Trueblood manor? Were half the trophies in there hers? Robert’s parents had died right at the beginning of their marriage. How long were they living there before mom opted out? 

“Why- why?” Alec forced out. “Why did it go for her?”

Ragnor hesitated before telling Alec about an old warlock he’d bumped into a few times. He had a warlock mark similar to Alec’s. Only, like most other warlocks, he’d also had a few more marks. Horns. A discoloured eye. He was the son of a greater demon, Ragnor suspected, although, at the time, he hadn’t known that. He still wasn’t quite sure, to be honest, the only thing he was sure about was that he’d been killed by Maryse. 

“The possibility is that, either the demon truly was Peter’s father and sought revenge on your mother for murdering him. Or, he saw an opportunity, as demons do, and merely did it for fun,” Ragnor said gently. Always gently, like Alec would break or something. 

Well, considering how much he was shaking that was actually a possibility.

“It could also be both,” Ragnor said.”

“Why do you think it’s a greater demon?” Alec rasped, so close to just running out of there.

Ragnor hedged a look at Alec’s wings, “Your mother was able to carry you. Beings of Edom aren’t able to do that,” which Alec knew, “and since the angel Raziel only gave you shadowhunters the power to fight that of Edom we think maybe the demon found a loophole. The only other demons I know of with the power to travel to this realm from the other circles are greater demons Alec.” 

He hadn’t known that. He hadn’t known there were other circles. Except of course he did because he’d been brought up with half a shadowhunter education. But they weren’t explicitly told about it. Edom was what was important so Edom was what they focused on. The other circles… 

“Then there’s your magic,” Ragnor went on, like Alec didn’t have enough to think about, “It’s different from what I’m used to feeling from ordinary warlocks. There have only been a few through the years that I’ve met who have buzzed the way you do”

Nice to know there were others like him. Sort of. 

He wondered if they felt the same fear he did at the idea of their mother or father or whatever being specifically chosen by these monsters. Since that was what happened. Greater demons had sentience. They had drives and minds of their own. They were once angels, after all. So while others could be excused for being mindless beasts, a greater demon could not.

“You look like you need to sit down,” Raphael said.

“Yeah,” Alec agreed, bypassing the sofa and his usual chair to hide away upstairs in his room. 

So he wasn’t a mistake. He was what Robert had always accused him of. A monster that had snuck into his mother’s womb. What would their Alec be like, he wondered. Their shadowhunter son. Would Robert like him? Or would he find just as many excuses to hate Alec because, as Ragnor said, it wasn’t Alec he was really mad at. They wouldn’t fight about his mom ‘cheating’ that was for sure. 

Would they be happy?

Alec knew his other self would probably be. He wouldn’t be here, for one, with a man that had been forced to parent him because his real parents didn’t know how. His real parents who were by far worse than any ‘depraved downworlder’ they’d ever told Alec about. 

The urge to call Izzy had him reaching for his phone. But Ragnor had told him not to use his cell, and the landline was downstairs. She shouldn’t have to know anyway, he decided, turning onto his front, his cursed demon mark getting themselves comfortable. She shouldn’t hear it from him. Let their parents tell her. He doubted they could hide it. Not if Valentine really was returning. See what their ‘real’ daughter thought about them then.

Another day meant another disappearance. Alec didn’t even make it back to his room before Raphael was flitting before him to tell him about another warlock that had been taken. “That’s a lot of warlocks.” they were branching up too, this latest one in their early twenties.

Raphael pulled a face, skirting around Alec to the bathroom, “They’re probably experimenting on them. They did before.”

The door closed just as Alec’s stomach riled again.

Experimenting?

He was curled up in front of the fire, resolutely keeping it from Raphael’s undead corpse with a raised wing after the vampire wouldn’t tell him the latest book in their book club when Ragnor came in with more news. “Not another body,” Alec begged.

“No,” Ragnor said, “Well, yes. They found the mermaids. All of them have been dumped in a processing factory. We won’t be eating tinned fish for a while I’m afraid.”

Wonderful. Another thing to put him off his food.

“But I was actually coming in here to tell you about the meeting. The warlocks are gathering in Florence. Too many of our people have gone missing, and it looks like someone has finally decided to do something about it.”

Raphael tilted his head up, “It’s not…?”

Ragnor shook his head, hands clenched in the sofa, “No. Magnus would hold it in Brooklyn if it were him. You’re coming, aren’t you?”

Raphael shrugged, “If they’ll let me in.”

“They will.” From Ragnor’s age and general celebrity in the warlock world he probably had a right to sound so sure of himself. “You too Alec.”

He nodded. There was no way he was being left alone here. 

It was a struggle to find something to wear, he didn’t often go out in public these days, meaning his wardrobe consisted of things to lounge around in. Eventually he settled on a sweater, and then felt vastly underdressed when he saw the other two in suits. 

He wasn’t changing. Who knew how long they’d be at this meeting, and suits always sat wrong on him. The tight material tugged at the top of his wings, then he always had to adjust the suits and the blazer and every other little thing that had to go around his back, and it was all just too much hassle for him. So he stuck with the sweater, and almost considered stripping it back off when they landed in muggy Florence. Years of living in Scotland had readjusted his natural thermometer. What once was cool in New York was now making him sweat as they joined the throngs of people filing into the old manor.

Warlocks from all over the world were here. Alec recognised a few from the high warlock of london’s party. He even saw the high warlock of london himself, standing with a few other warlocks and passing around drinks. Ragnor, Alec quickly lost in the crowd, and after pretending it didn’t bother him for a few minutes, Alec quickly ventured up to the second story to look for him. Sold out, kept murmuring in his head as he scoured the crowd. Some warlocks had been sold out, probably by others, probably by others that were in this room. So when Alec spotted Ragnor talking to Cat and another female warlock, he quickly glided down to them, ignoring the raised looks his wings always got him before he glamoured them again.

“There you are,” Ragnor yanked him forward, “You remember Cat.” Alec shook her hand, “And this is Tessa.”

“Nice to meet you,” Alec said, wondering why she looked a little familiar. 

“And you,” Tessa smiled, “They really are something huh?”

Alec pursed his lips, nodding anyway as he subtly tried to look for her warlock mark. She didn’t appear to have it on show, so Alec stopped looking and instead tried to melt back behind Ragnor like he was thirteen years old again.

As more warlocks filed in, Ragnor took hold of Alec’s belt loop. Considering Raphael had Ragnor’s arm around him Alec didn’t know if the belt loop was better or worse as it really did make him look like a kid that could go missing. It consoled him a little, at least, to see he wasn’t the only one shackled to an older warlock. Those who had reunited or knew of a younger warlock, were huddled together too, everyone holding onto someone. 

The ballroom started to get a little quieter. Enough for Alec to pick up on the gossip Ragnor was feeding the others. Apparently the group with the high warlock of london were the other high warlocks. One of whom stole the position from one of the missing warlocks. Alec didn’t know they by name, but apparently it was believed that one of them over there had been responsible for giving the former L.A. warlock’s name to Valentine. 

Alec hadn’t even known a high warlock was missing. The reason why showing up a few minutes later when Ragnor remarked the woman was only forty three. Practically a baby. Alec had probably just noted her age and nothing more.

He was shuffled closer to Ragnor as space got tight. So much so that he found his wings trod and brushed up against every now and then. It got so bad he lost his glamour altogether, figuring maybe if they saw it, they wouldn’t knock it. 

He ignored the looks, and Raphael’s smirk, as best he could, mind idling back to who was having an affair with this mortal until he found his wing being tugged. He didn’t even think, he just reacted, spinning around and punching whoever had a hold of him. He wasn’t being taken. He didn’t want to be experimented on and turn up months later with his blood drained and head caved in. 

“Magnus!” Ragnor snapped

Magnus, a rather colourful man whom Alec had just hit, looked up from the floor, his nose bleeding and eyes glazed as he blinked back to awareness. “Ow.”

“You idiot,” Ragnor sighed, Cat going around him to help Magnus up. Magnus Bane. Ragnor’s friend. Also the high warlock of Brooklyn. 

“I thought he was trying to take me,” Alec said, curling his wings close to his back. 

Ragnor waved him off, “Not your fault. Mangus should know not to sneak up on people when there’s kidnappings happening.”

Magnus had his head tilted up as Cat healed his nose, voice still nasally as he whined, “One of his feathers was falling out. I was helping.”

A series of snorts went around the group, even Cat knocking him gently on the arm. “If we can keep our hands to ourselves so can you.”

She finished with Magnus, tugging him until he was well away from Alec’s back. Ragnor grabbed a hold of Alec’s belt loop again, “I suppose there are worse ways to meet. Alexander this is Magnus Bane. Magnus, Alec. He’s the Lightwood boy I told you about.”

“Trueblood,” Alec corrected after a minute, his dad had never liked him using the Lightwood name, and after the phone had been taken off Izzy when he was fifteen, Alec knew any and all ties to the Lightwoods had been severed. On Robert’s part at least. 

The others didn’t ask about it, Magnus hesitating only a moment before laying his hand out, “Pleasure.” 

Alec shook it. 

He tried to ignore the long look Magnus gave him, as almost everyone did when he was unglamoured. Where others would comment about his mark however, Magnus said, “You look a lot like Isabelle. I admit I wasn’t expecting it.”

“You know my sister?” of course he knew Isabelle, Alec remembered, she’d been working with him for weeks on the disappearing downworlders. 

Still, it was nice to be reminded, “Your sister is one of the most competent shadowhunters I’ve ever met. Passionate too. She speaks highly of you.”

He felt his cheeks heat a little, “Izzy’s a good one.”

“Very beautiful,” Magnus tacked on, as a lot of people did when they saw Izzy. “Although, I have to admit I find her brother even more so.”

“Magnus,” Ragnor warned again. “He’s twenty one, leave him alone.”

Magnus just rolled his eyes, snapping a drink out of nowhere and saying hello to the others in their circle. No more comments about Alec punching him. No more comments about Izzy either. Just things long gone in their history that Alec had no clue about.

The evening wound on. Pretty soon Alec could barely move for the people inside and had long forced his blush down when Magnus, Alec was pretty sure purposefully, ended up pressed against Alec’s front. 

It started with a tinkle of glasses, every warlock around him with a drink doing the same until silence fell over the hall. The warlock who started the proceedings was the high warlock of Madrid. Alec wasn’t sure what to make of that. Logically, he knew the warlocks didn’t function with a real governing body. That they elected their high warlocks and had some sort of council that didn’t really do much unless strictly prompted to. Still, he thought it would have been someone other than this Lorenzo to start them off.

Magnus yawned into Alec’s shoulder halfway through Lorenzo’s speech. Exaggerated maybe, but Alec was certainly feeling tired, and it wasn’t just because there was a few hour time difference. Lorenzo was a bit of a talker, and it took an hour just to get past his many, many,  _ many _ accomplishments to the actual disappearances. “It’s not like he’s an actual high warlock either,” Magus muttered. “Just training under one.” As soon as Lorenzo did get to the disappearances the high warlock of Paris took over. He was the one whose jurisdiction the first warlock child disappeared under. “Always Paris,” Magnus muttered. 

Ragnor hummed in agreement.

The list of the missing and the dead were read, some warlocks present called by name to give their testimonies, Alec scarcely believing no one was doing something about some of them there. He knew just looking at them that a few were guilty at turning that blind eye for the Circle. 

Yet the warlocks let them go back to their place, Alec supposing a society of fear could make anyone sympathetic. Anyone but him. These were kids they were talking about. Real kids too, not like Alec in his twenties. 

“Alexander Lightwood,” was called out, all eyes turning to him.

“He prefers Trueblood,” Raphael called out like this was one big game show.

Alec felt like hitting him. The warlock at the front who’d said his name looked like hitting Raphael too. As it was he settled for giving Ragnor a look who pulled Raphael further into his side. “What say you Trueblood?” The warlock prompted.

Alec shuffled a little closer to Ragnor himself, “About…?”

“Well your parents are shadowhunters are they not? Members of the Circle too if I recall. How many names have you been feeding them?” 

Oh. So that was why no one was taking any action against the others. Alec got it now. “Look, I can’t speak for dad but my mom isn’t in the Circle anymore. And I haven’t even spoken to her since this whole thing started so, yeah,-”

“He’s been in my custody for the last seven years Eli. Alec is as loyal to the warlocks as the rest of us,” Ragnor vouched. Which, Alec didn’t really think was a vouch since, from the looks of the people around them, Ragnor had just called all of them out. No one in this room had complete loyalty to the warlocks and they knew it. “Move on won’t you, I have a vampire to put to bed before dawn.”

“I’m seventy eight,” Raphael muttered.

“And you still like a glass of warm blood before bed if I remember,” Magnus muttered, hiding behind Alec as Raphael swiped at him. 

The accused went on, every now and then people turning around to look at Alec. Some of them even moved a few feet away, which was nice since it meant he could breathe again. 

Eventually another high warlock took over, which made Alec wonder why Magnus had migrated here instead of over there where the rest of his peers were. He wasn’t complaining, not exactly. Not when Magnus slipped him an ice cold glass of water Alec gladly pressed to his cheek.

“... we are open for suggestions,” eventually came out of Penny something high warlock of somewhere’s mouth. 

Alec leaned in close, “So they don’t actually have a plan?” He thought he was here to learn about counter measures.

“They never do,” Ragnor sighed, sipping on his own bourbon. 

Calls for immediate action against the Clave came first. A strongly worded letter showing just how the Accords had been broken. A formal protest in the streets in front of the Institutes. Small useless things that were more likely to put them on a hit list than get any real solutions.

Other suggestions came for sanctuaries. This idea, helpfully supplied by Magnus, was actually a good one. A place to protect the younger warlocks whose magic wasn’t as strong as their elders. Since the younger ones were the Circle’s prime target it would give them some breathing room to take a step back and actually prepare a proper plan.

Except, since it would be the high warlock’s duty to actually make these sanctuaries, and the fact that creating them would put a target on these warlock’s backs, it wasn’t received positively.

“Idiots,” Tessa hissed. 

Magnus just shrugged, the carefree gesture juxtaposed by his clenched fingers. “I already suggested it. It’s my fault for thinking a bigger crowd would pressure them into agreeing.” 

No wonder he was over here then.

More suggestions came. Then one that shook the room into silence. “A greater demon?” Penny repeated.

“We’re all children of demons,” the warlock went on, “They should be just as bothered as we are that we’re being slaughtered. Again. If we strike a bargain-”

“No!” She wasn’t the only one to snap, almost everyone around Alec barking their own rendition of no as well. 

Greater demons were only out for themselves after all. They wouldn’t really help. They didn’t have a heart, they didn’t care about people dying, and they certainly didn’t care about warlocks that weren’t their own brood. 

It took a good moment for people to start talking again. Again, nothing really that could pertain to an actual solution.

Alec was yawning freely now, considering the floor and whether he could get away sitting down. It certainly looked clean enough, the owner of this home keeping it nice. But he was sure it would look disrespectful or something that would haunt him for years to come. ‘Remember when the Trueblood boy deigned to sit down at a war meeting,’ ‘doesn’t have much stamina that one, couldn’t even keep awake for a few hours’. He’d learned with warlocks they lived long lives and had longer memories so Alec didn’t chance it.

Instead he rubbed his eyes and conjured himself another glass of water. 

Around early morning Ragnor snapped Alec out of his daze of counting the sequins on Magnus’s shirt to start steering him slowly out of the manor. “We’re leaving?” Alec yawned.

“They’ll be talking for another three days,” Ragnor huffed, “I’ll have someone text me if something actually comes up.”

“So you do know how to text,” Alec grinned.

Ragnor didn’t answer him, just tugged him and Raphael to the driveway to portal back home. 

He gladly slept until afternoon. The other two were still abed, or just talking in Ragnor’s room as they usually did. The whole house was three stories, Alec’s room on the second, namely because he thought he could sneak out easier if Ragnor couldn’t hear him in the room next to him. Not that Ragnor’s bedroom was even a room. More like a study with a door that led to somewhere with a bed. One of the upsides to that being there were no windows in the study, meaning Raphael could hang about there all day sleeping on Ragnor’s desk like an undead cat. Not even an exaggeration, Alec had walked in there more than once to see Ragnor laying a pile of books on Raphael’s stomach because he’d passed out on the wooden desk.

He didn’t understand them.

They like, were together but they weren’t and Ragnor sometimes saw other people and Raphael didn’t appear to make any come ons so… he didn’t get it. All he knew was that they liked each other enough to spend copious amounts of time in the others presence. Considering their prickly personalities too, Alec thought it was sweet. 

He burnt his toast, but swallowed it anyway because he’d been raised in a household with Izzy, and years of stomaching bread blacker than this had made him appreciate things that weren’t charred to a crisp.

He worked out, he read, he did what he usually did during the day and tried not to think that he could have someone watching him right now, just waiting for him to let his guard down. He started working on some more cats houses after a while, figuring he could portal them to Izzy and have her lay them out, tell mom to do it when winter came. This time he was thinking of making a train, the carriages all the individual houses.

Ragnor came down later in the evening with news for Alec that the warlocks were still talking over in Florence. “Tessa’s getting a little angry. They keep asking her to be the ambassador to talk to the shadowhunters. She’s gonna start a fight, I can just feel it.”

Alec didn’t know what to make of someone like Tessa starting a fight. She looked so… but then, Izzy looked a little delicate too when she was all dressed up. “Why Tessa?”

“She used to be married to one of your kind, well, your family’s kind.”

He hadn’t known that. 

Ragnor went back up after he’d fetched sustenance for his vampire. Alec had the feeling they were continuing their book club discussion, and was half tempted to follow Ragnor back up. He didn’t however. Mostly because one of these days Alec was going to stumble into a conversation he didn’t want to be a part of between those two. 

So he stretched out in front of the fire and spent the rest of his awake time studying the concept of element manipulation. 

Day three, the warlocks dispersed, and news reached them that nothing had come from their meeting. 

Nothing but another missing warlock.

Everyone was phoning each other, asking, accusing the other of what happened. One moment the high warlock of Singapore had been there and the next people were getting calls that she’d disappeared between one drink and the next.

“Well who has a party when they’re trying to discuss keeping people safe?” Alec snapped, pacing his room as he relayed the name to Izzy. “honestly Iz, it’s a wonder they’re still alive to begin with. The amount of disorganisation. I know they’re powerful and I know they think they’re powerful, but shadowhunters are trained to hunt them down. They’re trained to fight against everything a warlock can throw at them. The only way they’re going to stand a chance is if they get out of their own egos and actually start working together.”

There was a beat of silence on the other end, “You done?”

“Yeah,” he breathed out, falling back onto his bed. “I guess it’s just scaring me because she was only seventy. That’s still young. For warlocks anyway.”

“I know,” Izzy said before Alec could go off it again.

There was an agreeing hum. One that was decidedly not Izzy’s and definitely not feminine. “Your brother’s right anyway. We really need to do something about protecting the younger ones.”

Alec placed that voice and quickly hissed out a quiet “Iz,” hearing the way it echoed slightly. “Do you have me on speaker?”

“I’m putting a profile in for the new missing warlock, forgive me for needing two hands to do so. Besides, Magnus doesn’t care. And it’s not like you’re speaking about him personally, just the rest of  _ your  _ kind.”

Alec grumbled at that. “It’s hard.”

“I know.” She did know. Even she had a hard time separating Alec from herself. She’d even tried to rune him once. She’d come around for a week when he’d been seventeen. The two of them had been sparring when Izzy got a good hit in on his stomach that sent him to the ground. He’d ended up scraping the sole of his foot, and on anyone else Izzy had sparred against she could have just used an iratze. But Alec was a warlock, and thankfully Ragnor had been there to take the stele away before it burned a scar into Alec’s skin. “And before you ask Jace took my headphones.”

Right. That explained the lack of a microphone then. 

“You know-”

“No,” he wasn’t talking about Jace. 

“Right then,” Izzy sighed. She clicked a few more times before telling him, “Done. Now everyone knows there’s another high warlock missing.”

“You’re a gem,” Magnus said, voice a little closer to the phone than Izzy’s. 

“I just wish I could do more,” Izzy said. “Hey Alec, did you hear anything else at that meeting that could be useful?”

Alec hummed about it a moment, “Probably nothing Magnus hasn’t already told you. I know who might be selling people out to the Circle, but,” Magnus had already passed those names on. “Have you talked to Camille yet?”

There was a noise from Magnus before Izzy was saying, “Er, no. She’s been a little hard to pin down. I think she’s went into hiding.”

“Course she has,” Alec sighed. If Raphael was to be believed Camille was the most cowardly volatile vampire that ever lived. “Try Elliot then. He was close with Lily. He’s also pretty young so maybe keep an eye on him. Did you check Lily’s room?”

“I did,” Izzy said, “That whole place is falling apart, I’m honestly not surprised the shadowhunters were able to get in so easily. I’ve tried to recommend some security measures but.”

“Yeah.” They weren’t going to listen to a shadowhunter. “What about the wolves?”

“Do you two always talk so much business?” Magnus said, a little distantly now, as Izzy’s voice came closer.

“He likes to be in the know. And mom told me not to go near them. Said she’s handling it.”

They both grumbled a little at that. She must have took him off speakerphone since Alec only sort of heard Magnus ask, “So can I ask for Alexander’s number or are you declaring him off limits?”

“I’ll think about it, and,” to Alec, “I’ve organised a meeting with this werewolf cop anyway so we’ll at least know something about how they track their missing pack members.”

It dawned on Alec, just as he tried to place where Izzy was back in New York, that if she’d officially logged a missing person then, “Is Magnus in the Institute with you?”

“Er… yeah,” she hadn’t asked for permission from the sounds of it. “It’s fine.”

“Is it?” If the Circle had managed to lay low this long they had to be somewhere. Most likely they were at the Institutes, still in Idris maybe, waiting for the right signal to regroup. “Don’t leave him alone, and don’t leave him with someone else. We both know there’s people there that could sell Magnus onto Valentine.”

Izzy agreed. “Do you… have you talked to mom?” she asked after a moment.

“Not recently. Why?”

The way she said, “Maybe you should,” told Alec all he needed to know.

“You know about the Circle then.”

“You know too?” 

“Ragnor.”

“Right.” She huffed, “It’s kind of hard to believe.”

“Is it?” For him a lot of things had started making sense as soon as he found out about the Circle. “I guess you never went to Idris.”

“I did,” Izzy said, “After you…” were taken. She always said ‘taken’, just like Alec thought it too. Even if, by now, he knew Ragnor had done what was right. Robert would have probably killed Alec if he’d stayed there any longer. “Dad took me. He said it had to do with some sort of inquisitor position. The one Herondale got? I don’t know, looking back on it now I’m starting to think they were talking about something else.”

“Probably his grounding,” reminded Alec that there was also someone else there that heard, at least Izzy’s side of the conversation. 

“What grounding?” Alec asked.

Izzy told him. About how the Clave had gone easy on their parents because they had Alec and were expecting Isabelle. They’d also sold so many people out it would be impossible for them to ever rejoin the Circle again. So they’d exiled Alec’s parents to the New York Institute, never to leave the grounds, go hunting or go back to Idris unless absolutely necessary.

“Sucks for them,” Alec eventually said. No wonder dad was wound tight. He could only get to his trophy room on special occasions. He wondered if Izzy even knew it was a trophy room. If she’d noticed the other things in the house that were ‘specially made’ as well. Like the rug in front of the fire that Alec was certain of now was made of werewolf fur. The lampshade made of warlock skin with vampire fangs hanging down like tassels. 

“Definitely. Listen, I gotta go, Magnus and I are following up on a lead for one of his missing friends. I’ll… no, ask him yourself,” There was a muffled conversation before Izzy was saying goodbye, the dial tone greeting his ear.

He didn’t know what to do a few moments later when an unknown number texted him with a winky face. 

He ended up saving it anyway, figuring it might come in handy at some point. 

He heard before Ragnor came down a few days later someone else had been taken. Almost as soon as Alec woke he had a text from Magnus informing Alec that there was a mermaid missing from the sea just off Stornoway. That was only a few miles from Alec. Ragnor was out strengthening wards again until Raphael brought him in. 

Magnus texted him every day after that. He didn’t seem to mind that Alec didn’t reply, and often his news was just about more people he heard about before Ragnor. But, every so often Alec would get a random text, something like ‘my cat thinks my feet are toys,’ ‘do you think pigeons get some sort of joy from aiming at windows?’ ‘you looked nice the other day, do you want to get dinner sometime?’ 

He didn’t know how to reply to any of them. Especially the dinner one. Was Magnus just saying it for fun? He looked like that kind of guy, and considering how old Alec was to warlocks like him, who knew.

Well, Ragnor probably, but Alec wasn’t going to talk to Ragnor about boys. Especially one that Ragnor was friends with. That had to be extra weird. Even more so than the ‘talk’ Alec got when he was fifteen about all sorts of things he could have gladly googled the answers to. 

_ What’s your opinion on mundane sports? _ Was the latest text.

Alec set his phone down. If it wasn’t a murder he didn’t know how to respond, and mundane sports? Alec didn’t have an opinion on them. Ragnor had taken him to a few different ones over the years but Alec had been more concerned with hating the entire world to really pay attention to them.

Around three weeks after the last meeting, another one was called. 

Ragnor didn’t tell them they had to come this time. He didn’t want them out of his wards, trusting his own magic over any this present high warlock that was hosting used. The high warlock of florence had been demoted, after all, after the high warlock of singapore had gone missing. So Ragnor left them to it, Alec and Raphael promising they’d be fine. 

Yet, the second Ragnor left, there seemed to be a shift in the air. Alec liked to think he could handle himself, just like Raphael trusted in his own abilities too. But there had always been this feeling of safety when they were with Ragnor. Ragnor had lived for centuries after all, he knew magic and escape plans that could get them to safety in seconds. 

Without him, it finally dawned just how vulnerable they were. All it would take was someone sneaking through Ragnor’s wards and who knew what would happen.

Alec fetched his bow, Raphael sticking close by him the whole time. They seemed to unanimously decide to shut themselves in Ragnor’s study. Raphael puttered about the adjoining room, closing the curtains and coming back with a sword of all things. Alec took a seat on the floor, counting the arrows out around him, then counting again before conjuring the fallen branches he’d seen the other day and carving more arrows for himself. Raphael, well, he was a quiet companion behind Alec, pushing Ragnor’s things to the side and organising them into drawers until morning came. Once dawn did come, Alec had a snoring vampire behind him, which was funny because vampires didn’t need to breathe so there was no reason Raphael should be snoring other than he did it unconsciously. 

Magnus texted him just before noon,  _ Don’t suppose I’ll see your lovely face at this meeting will I? _

Alec considered putting his phone down, then remembered that Magnus was probably with Ragnor, and Ragnor didn’t like to text if he could help it. So he flipped the camera on and snapped a photo of himself and a slither of Raphael’s creepy sleep slack face and sent it off.  _ Tell Ragnor we’re still alive. _

A series of hearts followed his text. 

He took his own nap when Raphael woke up, the sky dark and more texts on his phone asking if he knew he took Magnus’s breath away when he first saw him. 

He didn’t know what woke him up. The air outside was silent, for once, the room still warm from the heating. Raphael was awake and playing chess against himself and for all intents and purposes everything was fine. 

Yet Alec was awake. 

He set his head back down, curling his bow closer to himself and finding that nice state of unconsciousness that let him dream about things that weren’t his potential murder.

He woke again, not even an hour later to Ragnor crashing into the house. He didn’t know it was Ragnor, not at first. Not until he looked back and saw Raphael sniff cautiously at the air, his sword setting itself down. 

Ragnor found them before they went down looking more furious than Alec had ever seen him. Alec found himself taking a step back, Ragnor noticing immediately, “Excuse me Alec, I’m afraid I’m not good company right now.”

He carefully skirted around Ragnor and to his room, laying his bow back on the hooks he’d erected when he was sixteen. 

He found out, the next morning, after waiting all night for, he wasn’t sure what, just staring at his door like something was going to happen. But he found out the next morning that the reason for Ragnor being back so early was because a group of warlocks had broke off and, apparently, done something extremely stupid. 

“We have no idea if they were successful. But just the amount of support they had…” Ragnor shook his head, much calmer than he had been last night. Whether it was forced for Alec’s sake, or Ragnor was convincing himself it might not have happened yet, Alec wasn’t sure. He did know that warlocks were idiots when they were scared. Also that none of them were doing anything to actually protect the younger warlocks. They’d rejected Magnus’s proposal, again, when it came. “I couldn’t stay there any longer. Let the Spiral Labyrinth take care of them.”

Magnus said much of the same when he texted Alec a little later. 

He tried not to think too much about it. Not when another abduction happened so close to Ragnor’s home.

_ Are you a chocolates or cologne kind of man? _ Greeted him two weeks after that last meeting. 

Alec turned his phone over, getting back to shooting the endless targets that appeared inside the wards. 

He conjured a target higher up, stretching his aim. Then stretching it again, considering taking a quick fly to relieve some energy. Then, he couldn’t quite describe it, there was just a shift inside him. He didn’t feel like flying anymore. Instead, under the midday sun, and knowing that Ragnor was setting up an elaborate board game he’d created in the eighteenth century for them to play later, Alec considered maybe having some alone time. 

Real alone time. Something he hadn’t done since Raphael had come to stay with them. Enhanced senses sort of put a damper on things. 

He considered the back door, before setting his bow down and travelling around the field to where Alec’s room was. No one went in there, privacy and boundaries and all. So he quickly huddled himself in his wings and yanked his sweats down. The first touch of his hand had him biting his lip, God it had been too long. 

He spat on his palm, tugging himself as fast as he could. He didn’t know where this came from, other than pure boredom and Alec would be lying if his twelve year old self wasn’t a little gleeful to see Raphael in some state of undress on occasion. 

He considered conjuring a magazine. He even snapped his fingers but it wasn’t his usual issue that slapped itself in his hand. Instead it was his phone, Alec’s mind on two different trains of thought as he tugged his balls, rolling them through his fingers before lightly grazing his length again. 

He didn’t know Magnus. Not really. He’d seen the man once, and he’d spent more time thinking about how to say sorry than looking at him. But the look Alec had got of him he had to admit was a good one. Dark hair, mischievous eyes. Arms that definitely filled his shirt. It had been a high collar, but Magnus looked like he kept himself appealing. Did he, what did Izzy say ‘manscape?’ Did he have his chest waxed or was it in some sort of shape that would make Alec smother a laugh on first glance? Regardless Alec bet it was nice. Firm. Like something else that Magnus could firm up. Alec had seen, he’d snuck a glance down. He’d seen how nice Magnus filled those pants he wore.

He set his phone down, widening his thighs until he could feel the cold air brush against his clenched hole. He pushed his sweats down further, having the sense to turn on his side and send some of his feathers to shield him as he reached back and stroke over his ass. He raised one leg up a little further, the angle a little awkward now meaning he had to settle for twisting the head of his cock. It was still good. Still so good as he thought about Magnus’s own cock. Would it be like Alec’s? Or would it be different? Thicker? Longer? Would his balls clench up tight when he was close? Would they slap against Alec’s ass when they fucked?

He came to the thought of that. His finger just dipping inside himself as he thought of Magnus giving one last hard thrust and spilling inside him. Of laying there with his leg still up, his cock still hard despite the cum on his fingers and letting Magnus watch himself slip out and down Alec’s thighs. 

He fell back, head lolling, and for one brief moment he swore he saw two gleaming yellow eyes just beyond the wards. 

He blinked and they were gone. So was Alec’s sudden arousal. 

He yanked his sweats up slowly, knowing it wasn’t the wisest decision to be out here jerking off but, well, he’d done it now and his cum drunk mind wasn’t hating him for feeling good.

He rolled onto his front, nodding off until well after dark. He woke to see Raphael wandering around the fields, a frown on his face. He didn’t even seem to see Alec, too lost in his own thoughts. 

Alec glanced to the back door, glad to see Ragnor lounging in it, watching after Raphael. Someone needed to. 

He didn’t think about his impromptu jerking session. It was just a blip in his life that was quickly overshadowed by Ragnor’s wards being challenged. Something demonic, Ragnor would say later, had been thrown at them. Some mixture of warlock magic that had been tainted somehow. Something that, if Ragnor hadn’t figured out what was going on would have broke through his wards. 

Alec had been outside when it happened. He’d been counting push ups when Ragnor had ran outside, ordering Alec in, the pair of them seeing the disfigured girl with dark veins in her head pushing against the wards she couldn’t see through.

Alec had listened. He’d ran upstairs to Ragnor’s study, waking Raphael who’d passed out in Ragnor’s large wingback chair before dawn and forcing him to listen to what was going on. Alec locked the doors, the one to the study, and the one leading off to Ragnor’s proper bedroom where a single window lay. Another way in Alec’s mind said.

He conjured his bow, nocking one of his arrows and waiting for any sign of a breach.

It didn’t come. Instead Ragnor sent a fire message up for them, Raphael making sure it met the security measures they’d put in place before sending Alec down to make sure Ragnor was alright.

“I can’t go down, it’s still daylight.”

Which, Alec supposed, was a fair point. 

It was Ragnor, and just Ragnor. The girl was dead, not even by Ragnor’s hand. She was lying on the other side of the barrier, when Alec looked, and kept on looking. It was the first dead body he’d ever seen. Growing up in the Institute Alec expected his first dead body to come any day. Yet, he’d went his thirteen years without seeing a single one. He didn’t for one second think it was because no one died. More like his mom was trying to keep him away from that life. Where Izzy was made to stay up, Alec had a bedtime. Where Izzy saw the dead bodies, Alec didn’t, usually because he was fast asleep in his bed. 

She was so small. The girl. Her warlock mark was gone, Ragnor unsure whether it was the blood loss from the removal of her mark, or whatever was in her system that had made her body just… give up. 

Definitely the Circle’s doing went around and around Alec’s head as Ragnor phoned the Brownies to come take her away. 

He phoned Izzy while they waited with her. They couldn’t cross the wards, but they could sit near her, keep her company while her soul found rest. 

“What do you think happens?” Alec asked, staring at her still hands, “they’re half demon, but children are innocent. Do you think if she was baptised she’d be seen differently?” He remembered something about baptism wiping away original sin. A warlock’s original sin was their demon heritage, a big thing, but one that had never been taught couldn’t be wiped away. “Or are all warlocks just condemned to spend eternity in hell?”

There was clicking on the other end. “Her name is Rosanna,” Isabelle said. “Blonde hair?”

“Yeah.” Rosanna. It suited her. Even if her eyes were missing. “Do you think they even go to hell?” Ragnor was strengthening his wards again, filling in the gaps she’d made in his security. Someone must have taught her what to do. “I wonder what circle, if they do. If they’re tortured, or if they’re demonic blood takes over. Do you think they go to Edom to be with their parents? Maybe they become demons themselves. Maybe they escape to come to this realm to see their loved ones, and every year that passes they grow more bitter, they lose their humanity because no one recognises them, no one loves them and again and again they’re sent back to Edom.”

“Are you okay?” Izzy asked quietly.

Alec swallowed, eyes fixed on Rosanna. On her missing eyes and the hole on her tailbone. The blood that covered her, the bruises that decorated her once smooth skin. “I don’t know. I’ve never-” he cleared his throat, “I’ve never faced death like this Izzy. Makes you think.” Of what would happen when he died. Of how he’d never see his sister. He knew, someday, he’d leave her behind. But the finality of it, the fact that they’d never be reunited when he finally found his own end, it scared him. She was one of the few people he had and, “I love you Iz. You know that right?”

“Of course I do,” Izzy said, “I love you too. Do you want me to come over? I can ask Magnus to bring me, he’s already packed.”

He rubbed at his eyes, “please,” he choked out, remembering at the last minute that it wasn’t his house. He managed to ask Ragnor, and also warn him of Magnus, just before a portal opened up a few feet from the wards. 

Ragnor lowered a slither of his wall of magic, enough to let Magnus through, if not Izzy. She ended up next to the girl, Rosanna, closing her sunken, empty, eyes before checking her over. 

It didn’t take long, Izzy falling into Alec’s hug in a matter of minutes. The Brownies came after an hour, they had a little trouble locating Ragnor’s home, but eventually Rosanna was carried off. Alec waited until she was out of sight before joining the others inside. 

They went upstairs, Alec doing his bit to conjure everything Izzy needed overnight. She looked glad to be getting out of her shadowhunter gear, Alec doing the math in his head and realising she would have been maybe in the training hall, maybe checking in the ops room when he called. Definitely in her morning routine anyway. 

She didn’t mind, the two of them sitting in silence for a while before Izzy started telling him about her life. About the new boy she was seeing, the knight, in fact, that came to the Institute. “He’s nice.”

“I’m glad.” Izzy deserved a nice guy. 

“What about you?” Izzy asked gently, slouching further into his wing, “I gave Magnus your number. You didn’t mind right? He said you two had met.”

“We had. I don’t.” It helped with news anyway. “I just… I don’t know,” the other week came to mind. The almost otherworldly urge that had taken him over, and how, immediately, his mind had latched onto Magnus Bane. For someone he’d met so briefly, he’d sure made an impact. 

Izzy hummed, leaning her head on his shoulder, “I guess you don’t really think about romance when you’re cooped up in here.”

“No,” Alec agreed. “How’s Max?”

She told him. She told him all about everything he’d been kept away from. Another wound in his side. She also broached the topic of Jace, briefly. There was a reason, she told him, a new shadowhunter in fact. “Her name is Clary. I think we could be good friends.”

“But?” Alec sensed the hesitance when she said that.

“But nothing. Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow anyway,” she waved off. “Let’s just talk about something else. Like Magnus.”

He grumbled.

“He’s interested,” She insisted. “And he’s going to be here for a few days. You don’t have to date him just… you know, have fun. He seems like the kind of guy who’d be up for it.”

He grumbled again, keeping his comments to himself. It was still a little weird to be talking about it so openly. Like at any moment someone was going to come in and tell him he was wrong, that the way he thought and felt was wrong. It would be okay if he liked girls too, that was what he’d told Ragnor when the conversation eventually came about. But he didn’t. Not so far anyway. Maybe not ever. 

Ragnor was okay with it. Raphael was okay with it too. Everyone who sort of figured it out about him was okay about it. Except one person. But one person could make all the difference if they said the right thing at the right time. 

“I dunno.”

She nudged his shoulder, “At least let him drool over you for a few hours. It always feels good to be wanted.”

“A girl just died,” Alec reminded her.

“Yeah,” Izzy sighed, “I know.” But Izzy saw death every day. She’d learned to push past the faces on the ground and focus on something else. How else was she to do her job if she ended up like Alec every time she saw a body?

He tried not to think about it. Or, more accurately, what happened to himself after he died. With the way things were going it might be very soon, and Alec would honestly not like to spend every second up until then wallowing in his own misery. 

So he asked about mom. About dad and what they thought of Izzy interacting with downworlders. He conjured more things for her when she asked for them, Alec ending up with a near mountain of clothes on top of him as Izzy realised she could use him as her own personal shopper. Nevermind that it was, technically, stealing, she’d had her eye on a few outfits over the last couple of months and not had the time to buy them and Alec, well, he could never help spoiling his sister. She put up with so much from him. 

“This one?” She twirled.

Alec shrugged, “It looks nice.”

She rolled her eyes at him, “See this is why I need a girl friend. They actually have constructive criticism. Okay,” she grabbed her phone, looking up another outfit for Alec to magic in. “Send the white skirt back and magic this one. I think it’ll look better in my wardrobe.”

He did as she commanded.

She managed to get him to conjure some things for himself. A nice set of sweaters that they spent cutting holes and attaching buttons to until they fit around his wings. “You know, in case there’s anyone you want to impress,” she said as she managed to convince him to try one of them on, just so she could be sure she picked out the right colour for him.

He put it on, letting her adjust it how she wanted it, then changed herself until she deemed the two of them ready for dinner. 

Alec tried not to read too much into Magnus’s long look over him. Mostly because he did the same to Isabelle, the two of them having some silent conversation he didn’t understand. 

It was a quiet dinner, for all the secretive looks Magnus and Izzy shared. Raphael and Ragnor were as weird as they always were these days. Alec just, he didn’t feel like talking. From the kitchen he could see the place Rosanna died. The patch of grass that was already bouncing back, forgetting she’d been there at all. 

He tried not to think about it. He’d help Izzy get in touch with people tomorrow, figure out who she was, who she had surrounded herself with and hope they gave her a proper send off. 

Since it was morning for Izzy back in New York, she had energy to spare. Meaning Alec had a much later night than he would have had he just been on his own. He didn’t complain. He was sure if he’d been alone he’d be lying in bed staring at the ceiling all night. At least with Izzy around he was lying in bed staring at the ceiling with bruises on his shoulders. 

He turned, then turned again when his feathers yanked uncomfortably under his back. He folded them in close to his back, shutting his eyes and forcing himself to shut off. 

It worked. For a while. He thought about other things. Like how nice Magnus looked. He tried not to think about just why Magnus was here, just that he was here at all. The glitter that may or may not be purposefully in his hair. His just everything. Mostly Alec thought about how nice he was to Izzy. That the two of them weren’t at each others throats despite her being a shadowhunter. Alec always knew Izzy was great, but it was always nice to see others thinking the same as well. 

A flicker of heat brushed over him, his thoughts of Magnus turning not so innocent. One second he was thinking about the glitter on Magnus’s neck, the next he was wondering just how far down Magnus layered it. Did he strategically place it? Was there a larger puddle of it in certain places? Did he colour coordinate? Some blue leading to a nipple. Were they brown? Pink? Alec had never thought about it before and now it was all he could think about.

Something creaked upstairs. Alec buried his face in his pillow, turning further on his front. The bed squeaked, reminding Alec just why he’d spent so many nights on his floor in his youth. Something dropped next door, and another bed squeaked down the hall. 

He tested another slow drag of his hips up on the mattress, the bed reminding him again that it was old and didn’t care that there were other people in this house. 

He gently slid off his bed, going to his door to close it. As soon as he did however, the temptation to spend a good ten minutes on the floor left him. He was still hard, but the all encompassing thoughts of sticking his hand down his pants weren’t as strong. He had room, now, to think about what a bad idea it was and that he just wasn’t in the mood. Especially when he remembered what had happened today. So as soon as Alec’s door closed he found himself back on his bed again, definitely soft again and trying to find sleep.

When he woke, he suspected some kind of meddling on Ragnor’s part since as soon as Alec stepped out of his room he could hear yelling. Going back in, he checked his window, then the time on his phone, before slowly poking his head back out and listening again.

Yeah, that was Raphael.

Alec stayed in his room a few hours longer. 

The arguing had stopped when he deigned to go out a second time. They were still upstairs however, meaning Alec’s company that morning was his sister and Magnus. Not bad company per se, but Alec hadn’t really spoke to Magnus all that much, and speaking to just Izzy even he knew was plain rude. 

He didn’t know whether to be thankful or not that their attention was elsewhere when he eventually did get the courage to join them in the kitchen. Both of them were staring at the ceiling, Alec unsure whether Izzy’s enhanced hearing rune was active or not. 

“Morning.”

“Afternoon more like it,” Izzy said, eyes still upwards. “Mom called, asked if you were okay.”

He checked the time again, “Isn’t it like late over there?” Even for them. 

Izzy waved him off, “She had paperwork.”

Magnus cleared his throat, conjuring something before Alec had the opportunity to. “I hope you slept alright. I tried to make sure you didn’t hear anything.”

Alec tried to catch Izzy’s eye to see if she’d said something, but, again, she wasn’t really aware of what was going on. “Thanks,” anyway, since it wasn’t too far fetched to think that Magnus thought he might like a lie in without being woke by yelling. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Magnus said a bit too quickly.

Alec looked to Izzy again, his sister catching the look this time, “It’s fine,” she promised. “Just something that happened last night. Private stuff.”

“Then why are you listening in?” Alec asked, nabbing some toast.

She blinked back into the room, her cheeks heating a little, “I was making sure they weren’t too loud.” Maybe once, but they both knew she was just being nosy now. “So, what’s on the agenda today?”

“You’re staying?” He was pretty sure his sister was a busy person. She was always doing something important when he called.

Yet, “Like I said, I talked to mom. She said it might be a good idea for me to hang around another day. Things are… a little tense at home right now.”

“Things are tense everywhere,” Magnus sighed. “But even I have to admit it’ll be nice not to see your father’s face for a few hours.” He shuddered, “Brings back bad memories.”

“He’s not giving you a hard time is he?” Alec made sure. His mom might have reformed but Alec wasn’t so sure about his dad. He knew for certain too, that while other downworlders he could probably get along with, warlocks weren’t. Alec had burned that bridge as soon as he replaced Robert’s real son.

“He’s fine,” Magnus said, in that way that people did when things weren’t fine. “He just looks at me weirdly. Like he’s sizing me up.”

“He probably is,” Alec said, “You shouldn’t be alone with him.”

“It’s fine,” Magnus waved off again. “I can handle one testy shadowhunter.”

Alec shared a look with Izzy, his sister at least promising, “I don’t leave him alone at the Institute. I’m not an idiot.”

Magnus gave them both an amused smile. “I don’t think I’ve felt as worried about it in my life.” He stopped both of them before they could go on about it not being about his lack of skill at defending himself by changing the subject. “Now, what is this I hear about a picnic?”

No one had mentioned a picnic, but now the idea was out there they couldn’t think of anything better to do. It let Alec get outside as well, the house feeling a little tense if Ragnor and Raphael were still up there arguing. 

Magnus, having long been Ragnor’s friend before Alec was even born, knew every nook and cranny in this place. Meaning, he knew where all the fun games were kept and the dingy old picnic blanket he told Alec had seen a lot of action. Alec didn’t see how the wink worked in that statement. 

The air was colder today, Izzy told him between Magnus setting up some sort of ring toss game, that she’d sorted arrangements out for Rosanna. Or, Magnus had. The two of them had went through the list of the missing Izzy had made and called Rosanna’s next of kin. There was a funeral going to be held in a few days time. After the Sydney Institute conducted an autopsy. “I was tempted to ask if I could do it but…”

“Do they need to do an autopsy?” Hadn’t she gone through enough?

“You know we do.” 

They went to go play some games, Alec trying to get the image of that poor little girl being torn open again out of his head. 

Magnus… Magnus was a competitive guy it turned out. Alec wasn’t sure whether it was because he was going against a shadowhunter or if he just refused to lose but he did his utmost to keep his winning streak. Too bad for him, accuracy games were Alec’s forte. 

“You’re cheating,” Magnus declared, bending every way he could to see just how Alec was making the shot.

“I’m not,” he made it again, sending it up higher than Magnus had and watching it land perfectly on top of the other. “I just know angles.”

“He does archery,” Izzy called, sneaking another cupcake. 

“And?” Magnus asked, bending around Alec again as he made his last shot. 

“And he taught himself trick shots,” Izzy explained. “He can shook backwards and everything.”

Magnus quirked a brow, “Just with your bow or,” he dragged his eyes pointedly down.

Alec rolled his eyes, fetching his rings to hand over, resolutely not staring down Magnus’s shirt when a shimmer of glitter caught his eye. The thoughts from last night came rushing back, Alec hurrying over to Izzy to stuff his face with something sweet before he thought about something else he might like to try taking in his mouth. 

Izzy seemed to know where his thoughts were anyway, making kissy faces at him until he smushed another cupcake in her face. 

They had five games in total, Magnus magicking up a blackboard after the first so they could keep count of the overall winner. He kept saying it was some mini version of the downworlder olympics, the shadow games. Especially when he got Alec to fetch his bow. 

“You’re not pulling back far enough,” Alec said, demonstrating, again, that the tail of the arrow was to go to the jaw. Further, if someone could get it. But the jaw was the best place to pull back to for a beginner. “Don’t hesitate either. Line up your shot beforehand, pull back and release. The longer it’s up the more your hand shakes.” He’d learned that after his tutors made him shoot clay pigeons for hours on end. The first hour or so, Alec could maybe keep his arm up longer than a few seconds per shot, but after that, he had to teach himself to be faster. He soon found his aim improving when he didn’t spend so long looking at the target down the shaft of his arrow.

He handed Magnus his bow again. The arrow flew again, and, again, Magnus didn’t pull it back far enough before releasing. “I missed,” Magnus sighed, nocking another arrow. 

“Right,” This time, Alec moved Magnus’s fingers between his own, dragging the arrow that last inch or so to Magnus’s chin. “Let go.” 

The arrow flew, this time the whole length of the field to the target, waving goodbye to its fellows before embedding itself. “I did it,” Magnus cheered, tilting his head around to smile smugly at Alec. “Told you I was good.”

Alec smothered his own grin, “Sure did.” 

“Isabelle,” Magnus dangled the bow to her.

She took it, elbowing Alec out of the way and waiting until Magnus was out of earshot before sniggering at him. 

“What?”

“Nothing,” She laughed, letting her own arrow fly just shy of the bullseye. “Just you and Magnus trying to flirt. It’s cute.”

“I wasn’t flirting.” He was instructing. There was a difference.

Not to Izzy however who put the most sultry spin he’d ever heard on, “I don’t know why it’s not working. You don’t think you could give me a demonstration do you Alexander?”

“It’s not like that.”

“I bet he’s like a pro at archery too,” Izzy went on. “He so played you.”

It wasn’t- “Shut up.”

She laughed, getting herself a decent score to add to their blackboard. 

It was a fun afternoon. By just a short margin, and use of her runes, Izzy won, gloating it over both of them as they slunk inside for dinner. The other two had emerged from Ragnor’s study, neither of them looking particularly happy but, Alec noted, neither of them angry either. Raphael looked practically desolate as he lay on the sofa, wrapped in one of Ragnor’s robes. 

They’d made up then. 

It was quiet anyway, even with the uneasy truce. The food was good however, and since Magnus was no stranger to either Ragnor or Raphael, he quickly inserted himself between them to form some sort of harmony. The three of them were talking about ‘old times’ when Alec trailed after Izzy back upstairs. 

Izzy stayed until morning, when Magnus portalled her back to the Institute. Magnus himself, however, Alec found out which of Ragnor’s friends was fond of cats, bringing them over one by one. Almost like he was moving in.

“I’m not,” Magnus promised when Alec gently brought it up. “But Ragnor and I need to talk about sanctuaries. I’m doing it whether the others are or not. And Ragnor’s one of the best for creative defensive wards so the two of us will need some time to properly plan out our next course of action.”

Oh. That made sense. “I didn’t mean it-”

“I know,” Magnus stopped him, a shy grin coming over his face, “If you did I’d definitely be a little upset. I was rather hoping we could get to know each other after all.” He made a face, “Speaking of, did you even get my texts or are you playing hard to get?”

Hard to- “Er.” Was this Magnus being serious or teasing? He honestly couldn’t tell, and it was kind of cruel if it was the latter. 

His nose was bopped, “I understand. I’ll crack you eventually Alexander.”

The conference with Ragnor took a week. A week of the two warlocks holed up in deep conversation. Even, at one point, kicking Raphael out of the study in case, in the worst case scenario, Raphael got captured. They weren’t taking any chances for someone cracking their wards. Which meant, more often than not, Alec and Raphael were left alone coming up with more and more ridiculous names someone like Magnus Bane might name his cats. 

“He wasn’t here yesterday,” Raphael muttered, picking up a brown squashed nose cat. “Where’d you come from?”

“You think he sneaks more in when he goes to his room?” Alec noticed a few others that hadn’t been part of the original five Magnus had first brought over. 

“Definitely.” like it wasn’t even a question. 

The cats quickly overtook the house. They snuck into Alec’s room on a night. They tripped him up when he got out of the shower. They constantly meowed at him, trailing behind him like he was a big toy to play with. One of them even jumped him. Every time he went past the kitchen door it was waiting, butt wiggling in the air, ready to pounce. Alec did not appreciate the claws. He did forgive the little guy however, it was only a cat.

“Purrnelope,” Alec suggested, pretty sure the cat he was holding above him was a girl. She had a more feminine face than the big brown one anyway. 

Raphael snorted. “That’s not even creative.”

“You said he liked puns.”

“Good ones.” The one that had decided Raphael was a table was the only one they actually knew the name to. Chairman Meow. A tiny timid tabby that seemed to know Raphael fairly well. He certainly screamed at Raphael enough for the vampire to feed him. 

“Cleocatra,” Alec said, reading off a list he may or may not have looked up.

“Pathetic.”

Another cat joined the brood, or, as Alec looked up, the cloud of cats that Magnus liked to surround himself with. This one seemed to like Alec for more than just tormenting. She was a lovely little black thing with big moon eyes and a meow that broke Alec’s heart whenever he heard it. Even if all she wanted was for him to pet her a little more. 

Alec was very tempted to kidnap her. She liked his cat houses too, jumping onto the wooden train he was building and snuggling inside even when he dragged her out everytime she did. 

“Seelie girl,” Ragnor said one morning, pulling the chair out at the table. “Fifty eight years old, red hair, brown eyes, with a freckle formation in the shape of the Orion constellation.” 

“I’ll tell Izzy,” Alec promised around his toast. 

“Tell her to get her team ready too,” Magnus said, stealing the rest of Alec’s fruit platter. “Especially that blond. He’s reckless, but even I admit I’ll need him fighting for me if I’m going to start sending invitations out.”

Blond. “You mean Jace?” Alec asked. Magnus had met Jace? 

Of course Magnus had met Jace, he’d been to the Institute and the Institute was where Jace lived. Alec heard Jace was handsome. Did Magnus think him handsome? Did Magnus think him funny? Jace was funny right? He made mom laugh, and mom rarely laughed. 

“I think that’s his name,” snapped Alec back to the present. “I don’t know. He’s loud, he’s demanding. I just need him to make sure I don’t die.” Magnus narrowed his eyes slightly, “Why? Is he a ‘friend’ of yours?” 

Alec snorted, leaving it at that. He didn’t want to talk about Jace.

The cats were beginning to be gathered up when Alec finished his phone call. Half were going back today, and half tomorrow. Alec laughed when he heard Ragnor ask just how many cats were in his house right now. He’d suspected Ragnor hadn’t noticed them, too occupied with Magnus’s plans. Looks like he was right.

The tiny black cat twined itself around Alec’s legs, the two of them hiding out until Alec was sure Magnus had finished his cat capturing for the day before going down to see who’d survived the purge. 

Chairman Meow was still there, blinking up at Alec when he passed before snuggling back into Raphael’s lap. Apart from him, and the little black one, there were only around four left, all glaring from their numerous hiding spots around the room like they expected Magnus to send them through a magical portal too. It mustn’t be nice to be shuffled around like that. Cats didn’t know where they were half the time anyway, so being forced to go somewhere new and then ripped from it as soon as they got comfortable. 

He may be thinking too hard about this.

“She seems to like you,” Magnus noted later, the two of them slinking off to their rooms. Unlike Raphael, Magnus liked the room at the end of Alec’s hall. It already had all his clutter in, Ragnor, apparently, just waiting for the day Magnus will ask to move back in. 

“Yeah.” the little black cat was happily letting itself be carried to his room. “She’s cute.”

“She is,” Magnus tickled under her chin, this close Alec able to feel the smooth skin of his fingers brush Magnus’s. “Don’t worry sweetie, you’ll be back to your silk cushion tomorrow.”

“Silk?” Alec laughed.

“I tried cotton but she has very specific taste. It was a nightmare getting her away from my shirts.” 

Alec tried not to look down the obvious gap in one of those shirts right now. It took an effort he didn’t know he had in him. 

Magnus grinned up at him, very close, definitely very close. “I hope you’ll be a little more receptive to my texts now we’ve spent a few more days together. I know the dinner idea was a little far fetched with, well,” he waved around him, “But I do want to get to know you Alexander.”

He seemed sincere too, which made Alec question all the more why. “I guess.”

It was good enough for Magnus, the man giving the cat one last stroke before sauntering off to his room, Alec swearing there was an extra sway in his step.

The image stayed with Alec all night. That, and the teeny tiny look he’d caught of Magnus’s chest when he leaned over the wrong way. It wasn’t anything odd, just plain old frustration of having a good looking person around. He managed to restrain himself from doing anything anyway, eventually finding sleep, and waking hard, but not thrusting into the sheets like he had been the first night Magnus had been here.

The cats were gathered up before lunch, all except the little black cat who was proving to be elusive. It took searching the entire house from top to bottom before Alec remembered the little carriage out back he’d been meaning to send to Izzy.

Two gold eyes peered out at him when he looked inside, “There you are.” she didn’t want to come out however, and since Alec didn’t want to risk her running off if he went to go get her dad, he ended up carrying her in her chosen cat house back inside.

Magnus’s eyes practically lit up when they saw it. Especially since the cat had her head poking out of the hole, watching Alec’s feet. “Did you get my cats a house?”

“No.” he set the carriage down gently, “I made it.”

“He’s the one who feeds the strays,” Raphael said, looking suitably unimpressed as he lounged on the sofa. “I’m sure I told you about him.”

“Oh,” Magnus nodded. “I remember now. You’re that Alexander?”

He shrugged, trying to coax the cat out. “I just don’t want anything bad to happen to them.”

He saw Ragnor lean in a little close, muttering something in spanish to Magnus. Whatever it was had Magnus pulling a face, one that was gone as soon as he turned to Alec once more. “Well, regardless, I think it’s great.” he came over, easily pulling his cat out, “Do you have many more of them? I have a few that come onto my balcony, it would be nice to have somewhere they could sleep instead of heading back to the street once they’ve finished eating.”

He thought about the ten or so Ragnor and Raphael had finished painting the other week, “Er, a few. But I was hoping they could go onto the streets.” 

“I could do it,” Magnus volunteered immediately. “I’d be happy to do it even.”

“You were going to give them to Isabelle,” Ragnor chimed in.

Which was true, and how Alec found himself letting Magnus look over the little train carriages and left over houses he’d made. “They’re so cute,” Magnus said, unlatching a few of them and knocking on the wood of others.

He ended up taking all of them, even the one that hadn’t been painted. The room looked rather empty without them in. Without the cats in too.

Life went on. Ragnor and Raphael went back to normal. Somehow. It took a while but they got there, Raphael lying, once more, with his head, maybe not in Ragnor’s lap, but certainly next to it. He didn’t make a comment about it, finding himself staring at his phone more often than not. Magnus kept texting him, like he said he would. But, whereas before it had been bordering on flirtation, these days it was more photos and asking Alec to make a facebook so Magnus wouldn’t have to cut into his data. 

“Facebook?” Alec asked Raphael about when he admitted he did want to see more photos. The ones Magnus had been sending were of himself checking on the various cat boxes around snowy New York. Sometimes there were cats. 

“Snapchat is better,” Raphael told him, taking Alec’s phone and setting him up an account in minutes. Already Magnus was a ‘friend’, making Alec wonder how many ‘snaps’ a day Raphael got from Magnus.

The photos came and kept on coming. Magnus liked to annotate, telling Alec the many names of his cats when he was back in his lair. His favourite to photograph however was Chairman. The little tabby was Magnus’s constant companion, which meant he was usually lounging on Magnus’s chest when he set out snaps asking for Alec’s opinion on his new shirt.

It took a while before Alec got the courage to ‘snap’ back. Even then it was because Magnus had sent a candid of Izzy with cookies offered in front of her. ‘DO NOT EAT!’ Alec sent back, knowing Magnus could heal himself, but no one should have to suffer through Izzy’s cooking if they had to. 

He got a confused Izzy face sent back and that was that. It seemed kind of silly not to reply back to them after that. Unless Alec was doing something else with his time, he literally had no one else to talk to here.

He still wasn’t sure what to do about the flirting, but the rest of it he could answer. ‘They’re being weird again,’ he sent after one particular night. Alec was feeling relaxed, or had been until he heard the arguing start upstairs. He’d gotten a good nights sleep, right after he’d saved and maybe used a particularly good candid Magnus had sent him last night of the man asking for Alec’s opinion on his new outfit. Right now he was making his way downstairs to where it was quieter. 

His phone buzzed in his hand, ‘Do you know why???’ and a picture of one of his cats cocking their head.

‘Nope.’

A little girl was on the next photo, Magnus having her shrug. She was one of the warlocks he was gathering up to stay with him in his sanctuary. There were a few other kids behind her laughing, Alec happy to see someone looking out for them.

He set his phone down, sure he would find out if it was important. Instead he picked up his bow, twirling it around a few times as he decided whether he wanted to work on that or the other cat houses he’d been inspired to start crafting the other day.

He started shooting, working out in his head little things he wanted to tweak on his design. However, more often than not, he kept thinking about this silk cat bed he’d seen online. It was one of those four posters made specifically small for animals, and thinking about that made him remember the little black cat Magnus might still have lurking around his loft.

He supposed he could always make something extra for her and Magnus’s cats. Most of them, after all, were strays. They needed attention too. 

He missed Church.

He hoped Izzy was trying to take care of him. 

He sent another arrow to the target, “Alexander!” He turned around, seeing Magnus stroll out of the house.

Wait.

“Did you portal here?” 

Magnus grinned at him, a wave of arousal hitting Alec in the face at the sight of it. It probably shouldn’t have, considering he usually felt mortified after picturing Magnus when he… did stuff. Yet there it was, and here Magnus was, “Sort of. I’m taking you out.”

“Out?” Alec asked as his hand was taken, Magnus dragging him towards the edge of the field.

“Don’t worry, I’ve sorted it with the others. But we have to go now.” He winked back at Alec, “Spontaneity and all that.”

“Spontaneity?” he looked back just as Magnus dragged him through the wards, the magic washing easily over him. There seemed to be a bit of a struggle as Magnus got out, yet there they were, on the other side. He wasn’t sure if he liked it. There was something off. Something curling wrong in Alec’s gut. “I don’t know.” he dragged his hand out of Magnus’s. “Can’t we just stay in the wards?” 

He tried to go back, his hand swiftly yanked and Alec was no longer staring at Magnus. There was something about him that was familiar, the shape of his jaw, the slope of his eyes. But it wasn’t Magnus. Meaning someone had gotten past Ragnor’s wards. Meaning Alec was out here-

He didn’t see a lot after that.

When he woke, he wasn’t standing outside Ragnor’s home. Instead, his hands were bound behind his back, more ropes strapped across his chest. He could move. Slither, more like it. His legs, at least, were free if nothing else.

He tested his bonds, almost passing out as they tightened until there was no breath inside his body. 

Magic.

He slithered in the dark until he found a wall, pushing himself against it until he could sit. There was no light. No nothing in front of him but darkness. Darkness and a wall, which meant he was inside. There was no breeze either which put it more in a basement than a room. Usually in rooms there was a drift of cold air, the windows and doors letting in something. But here? There was nothing. 

As much as panic told him to stay put, Alec had been brought up with shadowhunters. Well, he’d sort of been brought up with them. Meaning, he didn’t stay put. He couldn’t. Staying put was often the difference between life and death so Alec stayed on his feet, and carefully nudged himself across the wall. 

It was cold underneath his shoulder. When he dragged it down there were grooves engraved, which probably meant stone or brickwork. Again no breeze however, which meant underground or a good few layers of stone. He stepped along the floor, brushing his foot out every now and then for something to catch it. Anything that could sever the bonds.

It seemed to take an age before his search bore any fruit. Whatever was under his foot moved with it with a push. Soft, with something that caught the tip of his sole when he felt along it. It wouldn’t cut the ropes.

“Urghh.”

Alec froze, before slowly nudging the thing again, this time feeling the way it moved, writhed, under his foot. He knew that voice too. Not well, but, considering who the last person Alec had seen was Magnus he thought he had a good chance at being right as he asked, “Magnus?”

Another groan, Magnus turning on the floor, if it was Magnus. Was this how his mom felt? Questioning everyone she encountered? She sometimes didn’t even let people touch her, afraid it might be a demon in disguise. 

Magnus jerked, panicked huffs coming from him. “Wh-”

Alec kept his foot where it was, sliding it over until it hit the floor, the rest of him following until he was sitting on top of Magnus. His knee found Magnus’s head, pushing it to the floor, he just had to pretend he was in charge here, that was all, so, “Tell me something only the real Magnus would know or I’ll slit your throat.”

“Wh-” he put more pressure on Magnus’s head, a choked cough coming out of him, “Ge’ off. Wh-”

“Tell me!”

“Alexander?” That head tried to move, Alec holding strong. “Alec? What’s going on? Why’s it dark? Where’s my loft!” the panic was mounting, but Alec didn’t trust it, not until Magnus said, “Where are the others? Alec? Please God tell me it’s just dark. Where are the children?”

His gut told him this was Magnus. No one else would worry about kids. The other guy certain;y hadn’t tried to use them, more concerned with sneaking Alec out with surprise and trust. So he let up on Magnus’s head. “Someone tied us up. Don’t struggle, they get tighter when you do,” He slid sideways.

“Alec?” Something soft brushed against Alec’s knee, Magnus’s hair brushing his jeans “Wh- what’s going on?” He heard the moment Magnus tested the bonds. The whoosh of air and sound of lodged spit that told of no air. 

“Told you,” Alec sighed. 

It took a few minutes for Magnus to calm down, his head shifting along the ground until it managed to climb into Alec’s lap. It was a little awkward after that, Magnus’s head going places it definitely shouldn’t that hard as he used Alec to lift himself up. “My magic,” he mumbled as he gave one solid push and sat upright. “It’s not- I can’t use it.”

Alec couldn’t use his either now that he thought to try it. He could barely feel it actually. He didn’t worry however. He’d spent most of his life not using it, he had faith in himself to not rely on it now to get out of this. 

Magnus, on the other hand, “I can’t- I can’t feel my magic. What-?”

“Hey.” He swung his leg out in front of him, “Hey,” he kicked Magnus lightly, “It’s okay. It’s okay, we don’t need it.”

“It’s gone!”

“It’s not,” Alec kept his voice calm, they couldn’t freak out. Couldn’t think of why they were here. Why people might have been waiting to take them. Who might have been waiting in Magnus’s home for them. People who knew exactly how to take down a warlock. People who had been doing it for months now. He swallowed, forcing out, “It’s still there, you just have to calm down. It’s there Magnus I promise. They’re just repressing it.” He hoped to God Ragnor and Raphael were alright.

There was a strangled groan, Alec feeling Magnus shuffle around, his panic probably mounting because of the dark. It took a while before Magnus was actually okay, and by that Alec meant not choking himself by testing the bonds or screaming because he couldn’t get his magic. It had probably been a while since Magnus had felt this helpless, Alec bet. 

He shuffled back to the wall when the panic had ebbed, starting the painful process of standing back up, his feathers telling him how much they hated him with every slide that pulled on them. Upright, he started feeling along the floor again.

“Alec?” 

“Here,” he probably shouldn’t stay quiet. The dark really was terrifying. “I’m seeing if I can find a door or something to cut the rope.”

“You’re upright?” Magnus asked, a slight sniff to his tone.

“Yeah. There’s a wall. If you back up against it and get your legs under you-”

“I can’t,” and there was the panic again. “How are you upright? They didn’t bind your legs?”

“No they-” Oh. Well, that just went to show how much of a threat they thought Magnus was. How little they thought he was too. “Just stay there then. If I find something I’ll come back.”

“Okay,” Magnus agreed slowly. Then, “Alec?” 

“Still here.” His foot was hitting nothing. They’d made sure to strip this place before putting them down here. He got to a corner, “Say something.”

“Like what?” Not too large of a room then. That or they had been placed close to the corner.

“Er, I dunno. What your favourite colour is?” he started along the other wall, his shoulder really not liking him as the skin rubbed raw through his shirt.

“Blue. I like blue.”

“Blue?” his shoulder hit another corner, still nothing. The room was wider one way than the other however. “Blue’s nice.”

There was a pause then, “Yourself?”

“Er,” he was going to have to start walking across the middle of the room if this didn’t pan out. “Dunno. Shadowhunters aren’t meant to have favourite colours.” That didn’t stop Izzy.

There was a snuffle from Magnus, “Okay”

Alec’s foot didn’t warn him of the change, which was why he almost broke his nose when he fell into the gap and onto a set of jaggedy stairs. Bingo. Still, “Ow.”

“Are you alright?” There was shuffling, a small ‘oomph’ as well, Alec knowing without sitting up that Magnus had just fallen on his face too.

“Fine. Found the stairs though.” He gathered his feet under him, pushing himself up, and up and up until his head hit the door. “I’m coming back for you,” Alec reminded him as he travelled his way up the wall again. 

It took a long time of scratching himself up against that door again and again and again before Alec realised there wasn’t a handle. Those bastards had taken the handle. 

Why wouldn’t they? Alec realised. They were shadowhunters, they had runes to lock doors. They didn’t need a handle or a lock. He wanted to scream, almost did too if he hadn’t heard Magnus’s frantic attempts behind him to try and get to the door too.

He knocked into the other wall, starting the slow descent down, his shoulder, by accident, hitting a light switch that showed both of them there would be nothing to help them loosen their bonds.

The bulb was surprisingly bright, Alec expecting something dingy. Yet this whole place looked like something he’d see in a house. A well kept house. The floor looked swept, there were no cobwebs, and save the pools of blood from both Magnus and Alec’s falls to the floor, it was nice.

He carefully crept back down, taking the executive decision to not have Magnus’s head bashing against his dick again as he tried to sit up and stood above him. It was awkward, mainly because Magnus was lying down, but with a little maneuvering on his part, and Alec wrapping his legs around Magnus’s waist, he leaned back enough to have them both upright again. 

Neither of them, he had to say, looked good. Alec could feel where his skin had split and saw on Magnus the scrapes and bruises from their short struggle up. 

“You good?” Alec asked, not liking the cut on Magnus’s forehead. “You see okay?”

Magnus nodded, his eyes a little dilated, but slowly getting back to normal now the complete darkness was gone. “Yeah.” They were also, wow, like a cats. Yellow green with slits down the middle. He supposed that was Magnus’s warlock mark then. A really pretty one if Alec were being honest. He also, maybe, had a favourite colour. He’d never seen a colour like that before, the way the light played with the gold, shimmering green slightly in corners and liquidising back into gold. 

He knew without looking his wings were on show too. No magic meant no glamour. Still, things were better with the light on. They could actually see each other, their eyes finally believing what the rest of them knew being that the other was there. That they weren’t alone here. 

The questions came as soon as the relief faded however. Alec’s first and foremost being what happened to the others. He didn’t want to bring it up however. If Magnus wasn’t already thinking it, he didn’t want to make things worse by bringing further worry to him.

There were other things taking precedence over those that might also be captured or dead anyway. Like the ropes that bound them. They weren’t inscribed with runes. Which meant warlock magic. Which meant the warlocks the Circle was kidnapping were for a purpose. Or, this purpose, at least. Who knew what was happening to them now. 

They were down there for hours. Alec tried the door again, now he had light to see by. There was no handle, like he thought, but he did have feet, and Alec knew how to break a door down. 

Or, he did when it behaved like a door. The first time he’d tried to kick it he’d ended up blasted back to the cellar floor, adding another bump on the head to his list of injuries. Magnus had begged him after that to not do it again, to wait. Alec had his feet loose, they could use that when someone came down to get them. Until then they just had to wait.

Sit there and wait.

His wings started to ache after the first hour. His arms the second. Alec could only wince in sympathy when Magnus’s legs probably started paining him.

They talked little. Instead they holed themselves up against the wall, watching the door for signs of life, Alec ready to spring to action. 

But no one came. 

Worse. No one was going to come. As soon as a number of hours passed two plates and cups appeared. They were getting warlocks to feed them as well as hold them captive. Alec felt sick. More so when he realised they didn’t have their hands to help them eat. 

He gladly passed up that first meal, the plates vanishing after another few hours.

They couldn’t avoid food and water forever however. Pretty soon, after naps and more naps and helping Magnus up when he fell, again, hunger set in. So did other things. Peeing in front of the guy he had an attraction to wasn’t his favourite experience in the world. But, as Magnus reminded him when they tried to get him out of his pants when his time came, everyone had to do it.

“They didn’t used to be so shy about it either,” Magnus said, both of them trying to ignore what was going on. “Sometimes people would just go in the street. Whip it out mid sentence.”

Alec hummed, adamant his first glimpse of Magnus’s cock wasn’t going to be when he was using his heels to help Magnus’s pants back up. If, he reminded himself, if he saw Magnus’s cock.

Of course, privacy only lasted so long. Days must have passed at this point, and neither of them had heard so much as a footstep from upstairs. The smell was starting to get bad, and after the hysterical laughter had passed, neither of them turned down a meal any more. 

“You know,” Magnus said, face nuzzling against Alec’s wing. He apparently liked them. Liked the ‘buzz’ they gave off, and how soft they were against his face. “When I pictured our first date, I was sort of hoping all this craziness was behind us. The world would be back to its usual state of insanity, warlocks weren’t being hunted down in the streets and I wasn’t stuck in a wine cellar contemplating my place in the universe.”

Alec hummed, shifting his arms further under his head, the floor was cold no matter how long he lay on it.

“I wish my meeting with your sister wasn’t a week away. Or, maybe it is now. Who knows,” Magnus grumbled, at this point Alec thinking he just wanted to talk to stop the panic from overcoming him again. They’d had a moment, a few moments actually, where all they’d done was scream, cry, laugh, sometimes yell at each other until they were crying. “Those shadowhunters know how to track don’t they?”

Alec hummed. Although, he didn’t mention, it wasn’t as strong as warlock tracking. Usually tracking could only be done in a local area too, it took a lot of rune power to track farther away, and who knew how far away they were from New York. 

“But then she’d need something from my loft to track…” He groaned into Alec’s back, head thunking down before nuzzling the feathers again. 

Alec shifted until more of Magnus was on top of him. The cold got worse the longer he was lying down, and since Alec refused to let Magnus be on the bottom, his clothes thinner than Alec’s, that meant he had to compensate somewhere, and Alec’s wings couldn’t cover all of him. Especially if Magnus was on his back. 

“When we get back,” Magnus said, still optimistic. “Do you think you’d like to do something. Maybe go for a drink?”

“If you’re being serious, yeah,” Alec said. He wasn’t going to pretend he wasn’t interested. “If you’re not, still yeah,” God knows he’d need a drink after this.

“Of course I’m being serious,” Magnus huffed, his head perking from Alec’s feathers after a beat. “Wait, did you think I was making fun of you?”

Alec shrugged.

“I wasn’t,” Magnus said. “Alexander I don’t make fun. Not when I’m asking someone out. Especially when I’m asking you out. What on earth made you think that?”

He shrugged again, “Guess I thought you’d see me as a baby. Every other warlock does.”

Magnus scoffed, “Yes, well… everyone needs to get experience from somewhere.”

Alec squirmed a little at that. He wouldn’t mind Magnus giving him experience. “Okay then.”

“Okay,” Magnus agreed. “Oh, and just so you know, anyone who has shoulders like these,” He gave one of Alec’s a soft grab, “Definitely isn’t a baby.”

He grinned, hiding it in his arms.

A date. He had a date.

Well, if he ever got out of here he’d have a date. Which was something, at the time, Alec had been yearning for.

However, seven meals later, he very much wasn’t feeling the same when the door suddenly opened and instead of shadowhunters Alec was facing a group of very familiar warlocks. They’d all been at the meeting in Florence, and some of them even high profile. High warlocks. One of them sneered down at Magnus. Magnus himself curled his lip back. “Don’t you look nice,” the warlock purred.

“Even covered in shit I look better than you, so yes, I do look nice, thank you.”

Alec had to admire Magnus’s tenacity. Even if it did get him a kick in the face. Alec, for his own part, was carefully gauging the best route to get out of this. He couldn’t leave Magnus, he also didn’t know how to fight warlocks with his hands tied behind his back. He thought, when they would come for him, that there’d be two shadowhunters at the most. Shadowhunters were cocky, after all, confident. They trusted enough in their own abilities to not need more than one to take on an already disarmed warlock. 

Alec could fight two. He could probably take one warlock too. But five?

No chance.

Still, he gave it his best shot, waiting until they had Alec and Magnus on their feet, marching them to the upper floors before slamming his shoulder into the warlock in front of him and trying to run. But warlocks had magic, and high warlocks stopped him before he even took a step, binding his legs and dragging him by them the rest of the way. 

The whole house was huge, the stairs as well, Alec getting well acquainted with them as they didn’t even pick him up to get over them, his head banging against each new piece of marble the warlocks walked up.

Needless to say, Alec was a little woozy by the time they arrived in some large room. He could feel his head split at every angle it had bounced off, which made turning it very painful and often leading to blood sticking to his already disgusting hair. 

“What is this?” someone snapped, Alec seeing a face he vaguely remembered. It took a moment to place him as the man who’d taken him. The one that had impersonated Ragnor. Alec felt his body clench at the sight of the shapeshifter, his dick strangely harden too, and was more than glad when the man bypassed him for the body next to him. Adrenalin, he told himself. Had to be.

Another man sidled up, Alec catching a pair of curved horns before the face was turned away from him. “What’s the matter now?”

Alec barely heard anything, his thoughts consumed with confusion as his body betrayed him and mind continually told him not to worry about it, to just take, take, take.

He tuned back in when the horned guy leaned over him, one dark brow lifting as he sniffed deeply. “He may be,” the horned guy said to the other, “But just to be on the safe side we’ll use both of them. God knows they didn’t bring enough seelies.”

“Wh-” Alec just got out before the world swam around him. He was tossed and pushed and turned and pulled until he was lying on the ground once more, something wet beneath his body. The warlocks above him were quick slicing off his ropes, and Alec wasted no time again, lurching up and headbutting the nearest guy over him. Disoriented he may be, but Alec pushed past it, vaguely remembering where the next warlock was and aiming a fist at them. His legs kicked out, one of them getting some warlock, before magic had him slamming back down.

“Feisty,” someone purred, “Pour this down his throat, it’ll make the rest easier.”

He tried to keep his mouth shut. Really. But hands continued to pry at him, and Alec could only hold out so long. He tried to throw it back up, to keep it in his mouth, but, again, they were the ones with autonomy over his body, and in minutes the world grew hazy.

He wasn’t unconscious, just floaty. His limbs felt heavy, and the world condensed down into abstract shapes before evening out again. There were knives. He was cold. When he turned his head he saw brown eyes staring back into his own. Magnus’s?

No. Couldn’t be. Magnus wasn’t a child. Right?

He couldn’t really remember who Magnus was right now. He could be a child. Just like Max. Alec had a brother called Max.

There was pain slicing through him. Sort of. He could feel the incision, and when he looked there was blood. He felt the pain too, but it was distant, like being cut underwater. It was all dulled down. He wasn’t sure he liked it.

There was a tree, then brown eyes. Magnus had brown eyes, but Magnus wasn’t a child. Right? He didn’t really… Max was a kid… There were angels on the ceiling. Were they in Rome? Alec had always wanted to go to Rome. He liked the paintings. 

There was someone standing over him, he looked like an angel too, he was cupping Alec’s jaw, his face set in a frown. Alec smiled at him. It never worked for dad, but sometimes when he smiled at mom she’d smile back. Angels shouldn’t be sad. 

He blinked, and when he opened his eyes again the angel was gone and his mom was standing over him. Her hand was where the angel’s had been, then Ragnor was taking her place, the world tilting again until Alec’s insides felt like they wanted to be outsides.

He was pretty sure they did become outsides at one point, but Alec didn’t really remember it too well. He ended up sleeping not long after to the rhythmic sound of beeping.

He felt a little… out of it, when he woke. The world wasn’t as blurred as it had been, but he had been pretty sure he was in some kind of manor last time he was awake. How did he get from there to the Institute’s infirmary.

There were things sticking to his arms. Wires and needles and things he happily took out of his skin since he was feeling alright now. The beeping at his side got a little shrill, but the other was okay, still beep, beep, beeping next to the other bed, so Alec figured his was just a little faulty. He’d have to tell someone. 

Swinging his legs around, he saw a note addressed to him on his bedside table. It took a few tries to read, his eyes adjusting again and again until he read that his mom was in a meeting and would be back soon.

Okay. Good to know.

He got up, starting towards the door, then making a detour to the wall when the floor came up far quicker than he expected it too. Damn wings. They’d always made him a little top heavy. The wall was a good friend to him, helping him out once more as he shuffled his way down the corridors he’d remember well into his old age. There was the hallway that led to the residential suites. The library wasn’t far from here either. He wondered if they still had his favourite book. 

Church! Church should be around here somewhere. Oh, he should have made a cat house for him.

“Alec?” 

He turned at the sound of his name to see some blond guy racing up to him. Did Alec know him? He looked kind of familiar. “Tessa?” No, wait, Tessa was a brunette. Unless she dyed her hair. But then, Alec didn’t think she was a man. Right?

“What are you doing up?” Not Tessa asked. “Come on, let’s get you back to bed.”

“No,” he couldn’t go back to bed, he had things to do like, “A meeting.” Yeah. Mom had wrote him a note, “I have a meeting. And I’m probably late to it because I was…”

“Sleeping?” Not Tessa filled in, nodding, “Yeah. I think it’s something you should get back to as well. Come on.”

“No no,” Alec evaded the hand, “I got to get to it. It’s important. Mom doesn’t like people keeping her waiting.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Not Tessa snorted. “But seriously Alec, time for bed.”

He evaded the hand again, shuffling along the wall, “I gotta find mom. It’s probably about Church,” he was sure Church was around here somewhere. Mom probably had him already seated at the meeting, he always liked writing memos. Or was it sitting on memos? “I gotta go.”

“Oh my god,” Not Tessa grumbled, giving up on trying to grab Alec to following closely behind him, his hands outstretched like Alec was going to fall.

He wasn’t going to fall. Alec could fly. That was the whole reason for having wings, to not fall. He moved further into the centre of the corridor just to show Not Tessa, hands outstretched around him when he found that better helped keep him upright. Baby steps. Small, shuffling baby steps he took, but he was upright, he wasn’t falling.

“Alec?” Izzy appeared as if from nowhere, smiling once at him before pulling a face at Not Tessa. “Why do you have a hold of his wings? And why is he out of bed?”

“He thinks he has a meeting with mom,” Not Tessa said. “And I have a hold of him because, for some reason, he let go of the freaking wall and he won’t let me take him back to bed.”

“Those are really cool,” Some red haired girl said. Did he know her? He wasn’t sure. Everything was different these days. 

Izzy zipped in front of him, taking hold of his shoulders, “Hey Alec, we’re gonna get you back to bed okay.”

“I-”

“I know,” Izzy said, “But the meeting’s in the infirmary. She was just showing the other members the way. You know how it is.”

Oh. That made sense. “Is Church there?” He was always hard to pin down. Usually he followed Alec, but Alec hadn’t seen Church anywhere. He didn’t want Church to be late.

“Yeah, he’s there. He’s been… taking minutes and stuff.”

“Does he mean the cat?” the redhead mumbled.

“I don’t know,” Not Tessa hissed back.

Izzy slowly turned him around, Alec quite thankful for it when the spin made the world go a little funny. “Come on dumb dumb, you’re the last one. You know how mom is for lateness.”

“She doesn’t like it.”

Izzy nodded, guiding him back to the wall and down the hall to the Infirmary. The beeping was gone, both beds making a shrill sound now. “For fucks sake,” Izzy groaned, before smiling at Alec. “Okay Alec, you just gotta wait here. Take a seat- find him a pen,” she hissed to the other two. “Just stay here. Mom’s gonna be here any minute.”

He- didn’t she say mom was already here? But, Alec didn’t see her so maybe he hadn’t heard that right. Not Tessa handed him a pen, Alec taking that and the notebook as Izzy crowded him further onto the bed, his back attempting to hit the pillow.

“One of you needs to stay here while I go find Magnus,” Izzy said, turning Alec’s pillow sideways so it slotted nicely between his wings.

“Why can’t I find Magnus?” Not Tessa asked.

“Because dad’s lurking around here somewhere and hopefully he won’t kill Magnus if I’m in the same room.” she darted off, pulling her stele out as soon as she got to the doorway.

“She’s joking right?” the redhead asked.

Not Tessa kept quiet, sliding on the edge of Alec’s bed. Alec waited for him to say something, pen poised. “Well?”

“Well what?” Not Tessa asked.

“What did you call a meeting for?” 

Not Tessa took a careful breath, before asking the redhead, “Is that vampire of yours around here because I don’t think I can handle this much longer?”

She laughed, “He can’t help it.” she shoved Not Tessa along, face turning serious, “We called this meeting Alec because we need you to write down everything you remember about being captured.”

“Clary!” Not Tessa hissed.

“What?” She challenged. “Your mom’s gonna want to know anyway, besides, what’s he really gonna remember like this?”

Alec felt a scowl overcome him. He remembered a lot, thank you very much. He’d show her too. 

He spent a good half hour writing his report. In that time Magnus was brought back, slung over Izzy’s shoulder with mom, Ragnor and Raphael behind her. He gladly handed over his report when he was done, his mom pushing him back to his pillow. 

“Bed,” she said, handing his report to Izzy. She pushed his hair off his face, “You had a few hits to the head, so try and get some sleep okay Alec?”

He had too, he remembered smacking his head off the stairs. He was feeling a little tired now that he thought about it too. Still, “You’re staying with me, right?” He didn’t want to go back to Ragnor’s without seeing her properly.

She helped him lie down, even tucked the quilt in around him. “I’ll stay, don’t worry about that. Now go to sleep.”

He did. 

He woke up only once more to the world a confusing mess around him. If he were honest he wasn’t sure if he’d even woke at all, the room felt that floaty around him. Like he was dreaming. But he remembered there being someone next to him. It looked like dad, which made Alec’s body clench because he’d forgot to lock the door. 

When he looked again however it wasn’t dad. His hair was darker, but fuller on his head. He was younger too, and sharply dressed. “They’re going to come for you again Alexander.” 

The warlocks? The circle? Alec still wasn’t too sure who’d been behind his abduction. 

“If you know what’s good for you, take Clarissa outside of the Institute.”

He woke properly between one blink and the next, the room light once more and Alec’s body actually feeling like his body. He turned his head, when he felt a weight on his legs. Izzy had curled up on them, snoring lightly as she drooled on his quilt covered knees. His mom was here, Alec breathing a little easier when he saw her. She was talking to a blond boy and a red haired girl with a younger boy, who sort of reminded Alec of Izzy, hanging around her legs.

It was the kid that saw Alec was awake first, “Mom!” and seeing a face that young brought back flashes of that hell hole he’d been trapped in. The face opposite his own. The kid someone had killed. If he was a kid. Seelies sometimes took younger forms when they were trying to trick others into handing over goods.

Regardless, mom noticed Alec was awake, hurrying over to his side and smushing his face up like he’d just got his first black eye. “Are you alright? How are you feeling?” she jostled Izzy awake, sending her to the chair next to the bed when she might be crushing Alec’s legs.

“I’m fine.” He could handle Izzy sleeping on him. “Mom I’m fine.” Somehow.

She brushed his hair off his face, checking his eyes he noticed, seeing if they were still blown probably. He vaguely remembered being fed something. “I was so worried,” she sighed, and if she was actually admitting that then it really had been bad.

She let him go after another few minutes of fussing, pulling a chair up next to his bed. He didn’t really know what to do from there. What did he ask first? 

Then the beeping from the bed next to him answered that question. “Is Magnus alright?” he vaguely remembered them saying they were going to bleed him too.

“Better than you,” mom said, eyes hard. “Alec,” she sighed, shaking her head, “Do you have any idea who did this?”

What did she mean by that? “Did you not get them?”

There was a moment of hesitation before his mom admitted, “No.” It really was bad then. “They’d packed up by the time Ragnor and I got there.”

“Oh.” He asked what she meant by that, and got the brief rundown of what he’d missed.

It turned out Ragnor hadn’t even noticed someone passing through his wards, which was indeed troubling. Ragnor suspected a demon, they were the only beings that could possibly be powerful enough to sneak through magical wards. Regardless, it took a good while before Ragnor realised Alec wasn’t anywhere on his property. 

He’d been gone two weeks. Nearly a month. It would have been sooner, but shadowhunters couldn’t track across continents, and Ragnor’s magic wasn’t narrowing down Alec’s location other than somewhere in Switzerland. It took days of scouring every underground bunker and abandoned warehouse that the Circle could be using before Ragnor had the idea to check the lairs of some of his warlock friends. They didn’t know who’d been kidnapped, after all, so it was perfectly reasonable to believe the Circle could be living in one of Ragnor’s friends homes. It was in one of the high warlock’s manor homes that they found Alec and Magnus in a circle of blood with their insides almost definitely on the outside. 

“We think they were trying to summon someone,” Mom finished, “Valentine used demon blood in his experiments before.”

“They were warlocks,” Alec muttered.

“What?”

“Warlocks,” he said louder. “They were warlocks, not Circle members. I didn’t see any shadowhunters, and none of the warlocks there looked like they were infected. They were there of their own volition.” 

She floundered for a moment before reaching for something on the table, “Is that what you meant? Goat feet? Rainbow eyes? You meant warlocks?”

He frowned, taking the sheet of paper off her, “When did I write this?” It was his writing. Maybe not the most coherent thing he’d ever written but Alec saw where his loopy mind had tried to make sense of itself. 

“Clary had you do it when it looked like you were going to run around the Institute again,” she said, giving him a look he certainly hadn’t missed at Ragnor’s. He didn’t cow under it. He was high, he couldn’t be held responsible for anything he did or said while high. She took it back, shifting him gently along his bed until she could perch on the end of it, the paper in front of both of them. “Explain it.”

He started with tied cat eyes, “Magnus was tied up with me in some sort of basement. We didn’t see anyone until they came to get us. The ropes they used were magical in origin, no runes to speak of, and our food was magicked down too.” He wasn’t going to tell her about the rest of that. The insanity. The fact they’d ruined someone’s basement. Even if it filled him with sadistic joy to know that warlock was never going to be able to go down there the same way ever again. 

He moved on to the rest of it. The weird comments about animal parts and colours the numerous warlock marks he was surprised to see he’d taken note of. His mom was extremely happy about that part. Ragnor too when he wandered over from Magnus’s bed. 

The last few parts of his ‘report’ were things he’d thought important in his delirious state. The tree, he was pretty sure, the shirt the kid next to him was wearing. The eyes, the fact the kid was dead. Definitely dead. Even if they’d cleared the bodies away Alec didn’t believe for a moment those unblinking brown eyes were alive.

Izzy crowded him in a hug when he was done, squeezing him so tight he was sure she might break a bone if she kept going. “I was so worried.”

He held tight around her waist, “I’m still here.”

He almost wasn’t however, and they both knew that. 

Things both calmed down and got a bit hectic after that. His mom wanted to get a start on these descriptions as soon as possible, meaning her and Ragnor quickly raced towards the computers to start loading up photos. The rest of them however, well, Alec wasn’t going anywhere, and not only because he was recovering. Right now, he was a visiting warlock at the Institute. He didn’t live here anymore, and when he had lived here no one had exactly known he wasn’t a shadowhunter. They did now however, meaning Alec wasn’t free to roam around. He needed an escort, and since every shadowhunter, Izzy, that could escort him around was pretty adamant about him staying in bed, he was stuck.

There was a bit of an awkward silence. Izzy was fetching her laptop, and probably burning something for them both to chew on as they watched some movie she thought he needed to watch. Meaning Alec was left alone with the other three he’d been sort of wary about acknowledging. He was tempted to strike up a conversation with Raphael, however Raphael was currently fast asleep next to Magnus, and Alec had learned from an extended stay with the vampire that it was unwise to wake him up.

Alec cleared his throat, not knowing which to approach first, or even if he should. Alec was content with silence, but from the looks of things the other three weren’t. So, before Alec could even think about making nice with a complete stranger or mom’s favourite, he cracked a smile at the kid. “Last time I saw you mom was still changing your diapers.”

Max rolled his eyes, “Izzy said you were a wise ass.”

“Hey, what are you, nine now? Language.” God he looked a lot like Izzy. Same mischievous smile. Same eyes. He wondered if Alec would have looked like that too at that age had all three of them shared the same father. 

Max stuck his tongue out at him, Alec glad he was able, like all kids, to just adapt to any situation thrown at him. “Can you fly then? Mom said you used to hide in the rafters and try and scare her. But I’ve climbed up there before so it’s not like you need to fly to get up there.”

“Er, yeah, yeah I can fly.” He had used to hide in the rafters too. But it wasn’t to scare mom. “Why? You got some sort of bet on?”

“No,” Max drawled, so yes, he definitely did.

Alec drew his legs up, patting the empty space which Max eagerly hopped onto. “Nine then, that means… rune studies?” Max pulled a face so Alec had definitely guessed right. “You explode anything yet?”

“Nooo,” another yes. Was Izzy going to be their only competent liar?

“More like set things on fire,” Jace chimed in. 

Alec took a careful breath as Max immediately hissed, “Shut up.”

“You did though,” Jace laughed, because Jace had been here. He’d seen Max set stuff on fire. He’d seen Max grow up. 

“He doesn’t need to know that,” Max insisted, then to Alec, “I only set a few things on fire. But I’m getting really good at memorising runes. Dad says I might need glasses though.”

“You definitely need glasses,” Jace muttered, and then it was like Alec wasn’t even in the room. 

He’d never been happier than when Izzy came back, shoving cereal under his chin and setting up one of their old favourite films. “You guys staying?” she asked.

“Beats rune studies,” Max said, clambering up until he was squashed on Izzy’s other side. It hurt, just a little, that he wasn’t comfortable enough to sit in the middle. But Alec was a stranger to Max, and how sad was that?

Jace and, Alec was guessing Clary, pulled up chairs, Jace pulling out his phone after the first few minutes and spending the majority of the movie texting. He didn’t know why, but the whole thing just bothered him, and Izzy knew it did since she had her nails digging right into his knee. Like he might say something. 

Alec was annoyed, not stupid. 

Still, he was happier when a familiar vampire started wandering in his usual morning delirium. “You have blood here right?” Alec asked, pausing the film.

Izzy followed his gaze to where Raphael was blinking at Magnus’s heart monitor like it had personally eaten his first born. “I’ll go fetch it.” she wriggled out from between them, calling, “Any requests?” Like Raphael could talk the first half hour of reanimation. He didn’t even look Izzy’s way, Alec wondering if he was trying to work out just what the heart monitor did or if he was willing to bite a warlock for his breakfast.

“Does he really live with you?” Max whispered.

“Raphael?” 

Max nodded.

“Yeah.” He supposed it was kind of weird to live with a vampire. “It’s not that bad. It’s kind of like having a cat around the house. Except he drinks blood and only likes Ragnor.”

Raphael’s head swivelled slowly over to him, blinking a few times, before turning back to the heart monitor. It was his early morning way of saying, ‘shut the hell up Alec before I tell on you’.

Max was making a weird face when Alec looked back, and it dawned on him then that while Alec may have gotten used to Raphael’s whole… Raphaelness, the rest of the Institute hadn’t. He wondered what Max thought of Ragnor. Of Magnus too. Magnus hung around the Institute, did Max have an opinion other than ‘is a warlock’? He didn’t know what to do when a thought drifted across his mind that dad might have been telling Max the same things he used to tell Alec. About downworlders and exactly where their place in the world was.

But mom wasn’t like that. Izzy either as she handed Raphael a few blood bags complete with silly straw. So maybe Max wouldn’t believe everything their dad said. He was sitting with Alec after all. 

Still, he was a little wary about what he said around Max after that. 

The movie finished, Izzy starting up another before getting bored half way through and started shopping online. She seemed to remember now Alec was here she didn’t have to go out and spend money. Something she happily shared with Clary, meaning Alec had two girls crowded very close around him. He would have told them to relocate to another seat, however he didn’t really want them to leave him, and besides, if they did move, it meant he would be forced to make conversation again. Or, worse, be left to his own devices while the others talked around him. Not like that wasn’t happening now, but Alec felt semi included as Izzy, every now and then, showed Alec a new pair of sport leggings she wanted to know if he would feel bad about stealing for her. 

“I already told you, anything over a hundred dollars they’re just begging you to take.” They had hundreds lying around their warehouses too, so it wasn’t like they’d miss one misplaced item. 

That meant he now had Clary shuffling a few clothes Alec’s way too. Practical ones as well, so, Alec supposed he would make nice and get them for her. She seemed to make Izzy happy too, Alec gathering this was the girl Izzy was hoping would be a good friend to her. 

Around the time Raphael was bored enough to slink over and steal one of the many books piled up at Alec’s bedside his mom was back, and she didn’t look happy. “Off, you have patrol,” she shooed the others, “And Lydia’s looking for you,” she told Clary. 

She took the laptop before Izzy could make off with it, grumbling to herself as she looked something up. Ragnor, for his part, came around and sent magic washing over Alec. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.” Certainly better than Ragnor. He didn’t look like he’d slept in weeks. Alec couldn’t begin to think what he must be feeling like. It was under his watch that Alec had been taken after all. “It wasn’t your fault. Not if they had a demon. I was the one who walked out with him.” the one who’d went past the security of the wards where the demon could actually take him. Who knew what its limitations were inside Ragnor’s magic. 

“Asmodeus is known for his tricks, you shouldn’t blame yourself for falling prey to them. You weren’t to know.” Whether that was for Alec or Ragnor’s benefit he wasn’t sure.

“Asmodeus?” Was that who it was? “How do you know it was Asmodeus?”

Ragnor’s eyes flitted to the other bed. “Magnus recognised him. He’s had dealings with Asmodeus before.”

“Oh.” That made sense. Asmodeus had been rather familiar with Magnus after all. “There was another one too. Another demon I think.” He couldn’t think of anyone else who would speak that easily to a demon. “He had horns.”

“Anything else?” Ragnor pressed, an eager look in his eyes. “Did you make you feel anything?”

“Feel…?”

Ragnor sighed, looking once, lingering, on Maryse before admitting, “The seven Princes of Hell are also the personification of the seven deadly sins. I should have known something was going on,” Ragnor said to himself. “Especially when I knew a group of warlocks had broke off.”

That was right. Ragnor had mentioned warlocks breaking off to summon a greater demon to help them. “You think it was them?” not the Circle.

Ragnor shrugged, “It’s looking like a possibility.”

Wait, “What do you mean you should have known? It’s one thing to know people are summoning a demon and another to know they’re- they’re- coming for me.” he struggled.

Ragnor sighed again, “Things have been rather odd around the house lately. I don’t know if you’ve been affected but-” This time his eyes cut to Raphael, “It’s not important. The point is that I should have known something was going on. I’ve seen these signs before. I just didn’t think they’d summon Asmodeus. Of all the demons, why did it have to be a prince of hell?”

Alec didn’t know. “Maybe they thought they’d have more control over a greater demon?”

Ragnor snorted at that idea, “they’d have more control over the weakest demon they could think to summon than a prince of hell. They always have their own agenda Alec, remember that. Whatever bargain Asmodeus has struck up with these warlocks, I have no doubt he’ll keep it. But he’ll be working for himself at the same time. So, this other demon, did he make you feel anything?”

Alec… he didn’t know. “I wasn’t really thinking about what I was feeling.”

Ragnor looked like he’d figured as much. “That’s alright. It was probably just one of Asmodeus’s underlings.” He finished looking Alec over, swaying slightly where he stood.

Mom finally looked up from her laptop, “Maybe you should lie down Ragnor. There’s a spare bed next to Magnus’s. I’ll be here all night.” Meaning no one would come in and do off with him while he slept.

“I think that’s a good idea.”

Alec caught his sleeve before he got too far, “What does Asmodeus make you feel?” it would be a good warning sign for next time.

“Lust.”

Oh.

_ Oh. _ After thinking back on the last few, he didn’t even know, longer than months. But there had been moments, odd moments, where Alec had felt a slither of lust, the kind he actually managed to figure out was different to the normal kind. He’d know for next time. He promised himself he would.

He glanced at his mom, she didn’t look like she’d slept well either. Who knew what this was like for her. “Are you alright?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said, far quicker than she probably should have. “You should rest some more.”

“All I’ve been doing is resting,” quite frankly he was sick of it at this point. “Mom-”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

His face twisted but he kept quiet. Asking, “Can I at least pee?” once he was sure she wouldn’t bite his head off again.

“Fine.” she helped him off with his wires, holding onto his arm even when he stood. It took a moment before she let him go. “Be right back,” she told him.

He nodded, hurrying the short distance to the bathroom. He finished quickly, washing his hands in the sink and watching the mirror in front of him as it somehow fogged up. It wasn’t a large bathroom. More a cubicle, so he supposed the hot water could, potentially, fog it up. 

Someone had wrote on the mirror, the longer he washed his hands the more revealed. At first it was the usual winky face or time for a meetup he knew some of the shadowhunters did. Some of it however even he couldn’t understand. It was written weirdly, like a whole other language. 

It was probably one of the kids, maybe even Izzy. She’d been known to write insults in other languages when she’d been forced to learn them. She’d even sent a few over text to Alec over the years, mostly calling him a dumbass.

He didn’t spend too long thinking about it, crawling back into bed under the watch of his mom. 

She got him a tablet when he didn’t fall asleep straight away. A few games of solitaire and he found himself looking up cat houses again. Anything to stop those haunting brown eyes from coming to mind. Those empty brown eyes.

About three hours after he asked his mom to fetch him a pencil Magnus woke. Unlike Alec, it wasn’t a gentle awakening, kicking Ragnor in the face where he’d went to check on Magnus. It took a while to calm him down, Ragnor talking to him in a language Alec didn’t know. But then, Alec only knew English so any language but that was foreign to him he supposed.

Ragnor calmed him down anyway. Enough to sweep Magnus over with the same colourful sparks he used on Alec. 

He turned back to his internet search when Magnus was alright, Alec had been fussed over enough, let Magnus have his turn with his own friends in private now. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did I update this? yes I did. Do I have another 10,000 words written? Yes I do. Let's hope I can get the rest written after this 10,000.

_ A gentle breeze hissed by his ear as the boat swayed, and Alec with it. His head rested on the side, hand drifting down until he could just touch the water. It rippled beneath his finger, faces appearing yet Alec, somehow, knew they weren’t going to hurt him. More came after, figures appearing, fighting, screaming, tearing each other apart. One bit so deep into the other he tore off a piece of her flesh, swallowing it not long after. His face changed after that. Distorting slightly before settling back, a strip of leathery skin replacing where his nose had been.  _

_ The wind grew louder, a noise growing in it until Alec could feel it physically brushing past his ear, lingering, retreating. He turned, a pair of yellow eyes following him into the waking world. _

“Morning sleepyhead,” Izzy greeted him, not even looking up from her book. 

Alec shuddered out a breath, sitting up on his elbows. “Time is it?” He could never tell in the infirmary. Mainly because there were no windows here. A requirement, not a welcome, for the downworlders that, potentially, could be in here at some point.

Like now.

“Seven. Evening,” she clarified when Alec couldn’t make anything of that. “Mom left with Ragnor to look at safe houses for you and Magnus.”

Great. Just great. He sighed, sitting himself up properly. “The others?” Since usually Izzy had a whole party attached to her when she came to visit Alec.

“Jace is training Clary, Max has rune studies and Simon has stolen your vampire for some flying lessons so don’t expect him back for a while.” Simon? Who the hell was Simon? “Magnus is over there though,” she nodded, Alec following her until he found his former cellmate.

He gave a wave, Magnus waving back after a moment before turning back to his phone. Alec knew he was tracking down the warlocks he’d left. That was all he had been doing since he woke up. Whether because he was worried or planning some sort of revenge Alec didn’t rightly know just yet. After all, someone had to have weakened Magnus’s wards, and, according to Ragnor, it was easier to do so inside than out. Meaning there was a traitor somewhere in Magnus’s circle of friends working for the others. 

Alec turned back to Izzy, “Please tell me mom said I could get some exercise.” If he had to stay one more day cooped up in the infirmary he might actually kill someone. All this being locked away, it wasn’t good for him.

“She said you can go to the training rooms. But we have to bring Magnus with us. And you’re only allowed between the times of nine am to twelve pm.” Meaning Alec had missed his spot. 

He was tempted to beg Izzy to take him anyway, but going to the training room now… well, he knew why his mom had chosen those specific times. His dad wouldn’t be awake between those times. Neither would half the Institute who, like dad, would be a little irked about seeing a pair of warlocks walking around. Well, warlocks that weren’t Ragnor Fell. Somehow those visits when Alec had been younger had softened the shadowhunters to him. That, or mom was scarier than any warlock could ever hope to be and no one thought to question just why Ragnor was by her side as a result.

Whatever the case, Alec could either nap now and hope to wake up in time for his slot in the training room. Or he could give into his desire to be awake and succumb to never ending boredom until he was too tired to even remember he had a slot in the training room. 

Believe it or not, the second option was actually more appealing than the first. Alec had been doing nothing but sleep lately. He was pretty sure he was starting to get bed sores from it. It wasn’t even the blood loss at this point that had him tired, he was just bored. Plain and simple. 

He shuffled out of bed, wincing when his back hurt from lying down too long. He stretched, then moved a little and stretched again when he was sure his wings wouldn’t knock out the medical equipment. Circling his arms, he made his way to the showers, cursing shadowhunters and their tiny stalls when his wings got caught for the fifth time on the glass. He had to actually strain for the shower head, and even when it was all over he didn’t feel clean. 

He wondered if he would have found a solution if he’d stayed at the Institute. Maybe snuck a bath inside, or broke the glass ‘accidentally’ in his own room so he could shower in peace. He wondered a lot of things that might have been had he been trapped here in the Institute. 

He lingered as long as he could in the bathroom, glad he had a bathroom this time around before he resigned himself to capture once more. “Stop looking so sullen,” Izzy told him when he flopped back onto his bed. “You’re alive.”

“I know.” and he was thankful for it. Still, “I’m just bored. Are you sure there’s nothing for me to do?” All of his old things, his bow that, well, would be too small for him now, his sketchbooks, his books, even his freaking music player, they’d all been thrown out through the years. Meaning he had nothing but the charity of his good sister to rely on if he wanted some form of entertainment. 

Well, that and magic. But Ragnor had told him not to do any magic after the wards had went off the last time Alec had magicked a new skirt for Izzy. He suspected they were tracking Alec with it. Magnus too, which was another reason Magnus was glued to his phone instead of voodooing whoever betrayed him into something or other. Was voodoo even a thing? 

“Just sit tight will you,” Izzy sighed. “It’s not that bad. Do you know how much I would kill for a few days off.”

“A few?” This was more than a few. “And it’s not a day off Iz. A day off is when you can do what you like, not be stuck in a tiny room that doesn’t have a ceiling high enough for me to fly.” He’d tried too. He’d been so desperate for something to do he’d tried flying, or hovering or something that would stretch his wings out properly. But things had been broken, and the ceiling was too low and Ragnor hadn’t been too happy healing a bump on Alec’s head put it that way. 

He saw her face twist in agreement. “Do some push ups or something then. If you push some of the beds to the side I’m sure there’ll be room enough for you to, I don’t know, find a yoga video to do?”

Which, “Okay that’s not a bad idea.” 

It wasn’t a big space, when they finally did push everything to the side, but it was big enough that, so long as Alec was careful, he could follow along to a few youtube videos. 

“Shut up,” Alec grumbled as he tried reaching back for his leg. 

Izzy snickered again regardless, Alec fighting through a horde of feathers and still not able to reach for his foot. He knew it was there. The problem was it was on the outside of his wing, not inside, and Alec couldn’t very well flare it out, which meant he was left poking the feathers aside and hoping he could grab his leg before they closed up again. 

“Iz!”

She wheezed, Alec moving on from that to touching his toes, “I’m sorry, I just forgot how ungraceful you are.” and just to prove her right Alec almost toppled forward. Yes, he was used to the weight by now, but that didn’t mean they weren’t heavy. Or that Alec tried to touch his toes every day meaning, when he did, he was a little more than unbalanced. “It’s like watching one of those drinking birds.”

He glared back at her, moving onto his stomach and arching back. “You’re a butt, you know that?”

“I do,” Izzy nodded, “I really do. But that still doesn’t change the fact you’re a massive pigeon.”

“Hey!” Harsh. 

“My thoughts exactly,” came from the other end of the room, Alec glancing over to two yellow green eyes very purposefully not on their phone. “You know he’s more like a raven than a pigeon.” 

“You’re biased,” Izzy said.

“As are you,” Magnus pointed out. “Now,” He sat up, bouncing on his little slice of bed, “I suggest we leave Alexander to it. I’ve done this video before, there’s quite a nice position coming up in-”

“Okay,” yeah, no, not happening. “I think I’m gonna move onto something else.” 

He ignored the pout coming his way, instead finding something a little more active than yoga to do. It didn’t work out every kink in his body, but he didn’t look like a complete idiot doing it, which Alec counted as a win. 

He had a nap afterwards, waking to something resembling food and a very happy Magnus snoozing under his wing. Mom came in around an hour afterwards, right as Alec finally found a movie that held his attention for more than a few minutes. She didn’t look happy. But then, she hadn’t looked happy for days now. The point was that Alec was very careful to move that little bit further away from Magnus when she came in, hoping she put down the shared bed to the movearound Alec still hadn’t gotten to putting back yet. Or, maybe just Magnus having fallen asleep watching a movie.

“Any news?” Alec asked, gratefully accepting the plate of actual food Izzy hadn’t made. 

“None,” which was why she looked so sullen. “But,” she looked to Ragnor.

“We’ll be moving in a few days,” he finished.

“Oh,” that was good. “Where?” 

At that mom’s scowl darkened further. Ragnor, on the other hand, looked quite pleased with himself when he answered “Idris.” 

Idris. “Like, Idris, Idris?” 

Ragnor nodded, “I have a home there. I thought before it was a little too risky to chance moving, but if we have to be wary of warlocks now too, I think we’d best go somewhere downworlders aren’t likely to follow.”

“Not that you’ll be going to your house,” Mom reminded him.

Ragnor rolled his eyes, “My house is perfectly safe.”

“And mine is where no one will think to look.” Which was actually a good point.

But, “Wait, am I even allowed in there?” and so many other questions but that one was sticking out right now.

Mom gave him a dry look, “You’ve been before haven’t you?” 

When he was younger and everyone thought he was a shadowhunter yes. But, from the look on her face he didn’t want to say that to her right now. Which meant Alec could move onto his second question, “When you say your house, do you mean the Trueblood m-”

“Your fathers,” she bit out.

He felt his heart stop for a second. “Oh.” He should have known. Mom’s house was where his grandparents still lived. Not that he’d ever met them. Sometimes he wondered if they even knew about him.

There was a brief fight after that, Ragnor starting, and probably not for the first time, about just why moving to the Lightwood manor was no different than his house on the outskirts. On and on it went until Alec saw the clock turn into a nine and Izzy appeared in the doorway. 

He didn’t waste time, leaving them to their negotiations as he followed Izzy out and to the training room. “You’re not bringing Magnus?”

“Ragnor’s there,” and mom, which meant Magnus was supervised. Besides, the way they were arguing they’d still be there by the time he was finished letting off some steam.

He did a lap as soon as he entered the training room. It was so good to have space again. To have things to hit. Room to flex his wings. He actually had space to do proper push ups. A bar to do pull ups. Sure, he was pretty lazy around home, but being cooped up for so long Alec was honestly excited at the punching bag that practically screamed his name.

He enjoyed the full three hours he had in there, not wasting a single second. In the end Izzy had to actually threaten him to get him to leave, the two of them trudging back to the infirmary.

Plans had actually been made by the time Alec jumped back into bed. Despite his arguing, and Magnus arguing when he woke up and realised that yes, he wasn’t being allowed to roam free again either, they were going to Idris. To the Lightwood manor. Suddenly Alec didn’t feel so bad about being stuck in the infirmary. Neither did the others, although Ragnor still went with mom every now and then to scour the Institute’s library for any information about Asmodeus. 

The day they left was a sombre one. All of them were in a sour mood, even Raphael who Alec hadn’t known could get more sour than he already was. He was practically clinging to Ragnor’s side, like that alone would protect him from all the shadowhunter threats waiting for them on the other side of their portal.

“Don’t get in too much trouble,” Izzy told him, hugging him tight.

He clung back just as hard, some part of him realising that he might not see her for a while. Hear from her either since they were cutting all communication off as soon as they stepped through their portal. “I’m gonna miss you.” 

She sniffed against his ear, squeezing his neck one more time before letting go. Mom took her place before he could breathe, planting a load of kisses on his cheek. He was going to miss her too. It had been literal years since they’d last seen each other. “Stay safe,” she said.

Alec nodded, picking up the bag of his things Ragnor had conjured for him that morning, the last bit of magic he would be doing for a while. He shouldered the strap, giving Max and the others a short wave before joining Ragnor at the portal lip. 

“Ready?” Ragnor asked, holding his hand out.

Alec took it. “Yeah.” They stepped through, the gleaming fields of Idris waiting on the other side and straight up ahead the Lightwood manor.

If Alec had to describe his idea of hell, it would be the Lightwood manor. A bit dramatic, maybe, but he held no love for this place, even if, in his younger days, he’d been more than happy to sit inside its walls and wait for his dad. Magnus and Raphael were already inside when Alec got there, the two of them lingering in the doorway, looking expectantly at Alec.

“Inside,” Ragnor hurried, shoving all of them in a few steps, the door closing behind them before he too stopped.

Just why, Alec couldn’t figure out straight away. All the awful stuff was further inside. Right now, all that was on the walls were paintings of shadowhunters past. Unless they knew these people, Alec didn’t see a reason for them to be dawdling. 

Then it hit him. Alec hadn’t been brought up with the same fear these people had of shadowhunters. He hadn’t lived through the uprising. But these people had. Raphael’s comment came to mind, of being hunted in the streets for sport. Why wouldn’t they linger when they were inside one of their most aggressive hunters homes. “I don’t think it’s trapped.”

No one moved forward. Magnus, eventually, suggested, “Maybe a little bit of magic might be needed Ragnor.”

Ragnor looked like he was honestly considering it before deciding, “You know it’s too risky.” He took the leap, stepping further into the manor. “We’re just going to have to do things the old fashioned way. Scream if you need help.”

“Ominous,” Raphael muttered, watching, like the rest of them, as Ragnor ventured further again, before sprinting over to him, grabbing the sleeve of his coat, his feet not even an inch behind Ragnor’s.

Alec actually heard Magnus swallow. “I know you and your sister joked about it in the past but, how violent is your father?”

Alec dropped his bag down, figuring it would be easier to run without something weighing him down. “Those weren’t jokes.” Also, “Shouldn’t you know?” Magnus was the one with the history.

Yet Magnus shrugged, “It was more your mother I had dealings with than your father.”

Ah.

Right.

He swallowed, telling himself that his dad wouldn’t rig his own home. Then he told himself when that logic didn’t exactly hold true that his dad wouldn’t have had time to rig his own home because mom was telling him after Alec left for Idris. So like now. Meaning it was more likely Robert was going to show up here with a seraph blade and kill them than a trap that probably didn’t exist in his home. 

He took a step. Then another, poking his head into the first room he came to and having to immediately duck back out. There were no traps, but that wasn’t to say Alec wanted to look in there. Many things in this place Alec was starting to see differently. To recognise from people that were his own now. 

Something creaked up ahead, Alec’s heart stopping until he saw it was just Magnus carefully opening the door ahead. Overall, with the speed they went, it took them four hours to check the important parts of the manor. That being their way in, way out, the kitchen and a few of the bedrooms. Alec happily took the one with Izzy’s things inside, his dad would never mess with her stuff. It was just a written rule. One Izzy had told him pointedly before hugging him. 

They met down at the kitchen once the bedrooms had properly been scoured. With no crossbows in the cupboards, just a knife embedded in the table, Alec took a mental inventory of what they had, then a physical one when he realised they couldn’t conjure things to eat anymore. Ragnor seemed to realise this too, his lip twitching as they all remembered the map of little shops mom had shown them to visit if they needed supplies. Shadowhunter run shops. 

It took a while to devise a plan. There really was nothing in the pantry to last them until morning, and since all three, Magnus, Ragnor and Alec would be recognised, that just left Raphael to go out and… mingle.

“This isn’t New York,” Raphael tried, “they’re probably not even open.”

“It’s nine,” Alec said. “And Idris has a nightlife believe it or not. Some shops are definitely still open.”

“Well,” Raphael’s throat bobbed, “well, what if they have UV lights? Vampires aren’t meant to be here, what if they have some sort of checkpoint, or special traps designed to find out if someone’s a shadowhunter or not.”

He was actually scared Alec realised. “I’ll go.” This wasn’t fair to Raphael. Not to mention he might have a point about the UV lights. Idris wasn’t downworlder friendly for a reason, who knew what sort of measures they had to stop them getting in.

“Absolutely not,” Ragnor said. He turned to Raphael, “I’ll come with you. Maybe if I find a hood they won’t recognise me.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Magnus chimed, “But you’re green my dear little cabbage. And no magic means no glamours so you’re definitely not going Alexander. I’m sorry Raphael, but unless Ragnor lets me cake him in foundation you’re going to have to go on your own.”

Except Ragnor was willing to cover himself in foundation, it turned out. Ever the martyr, he gave them all a long spiel about deception and espionage and how Raphael shouldn’t be forced into a situation without any backup. It went long enough for Alec to actually start fearing the shops would close and Magnus to give in, fetching something that was far too dark for Ragnor’s skin tone, but did an okay job with the gloves and the hood to hide him. Alec took care of Raphael, making him stay still as he drew half a rune with eyeliner on his neck. 

“So long as they think one of you is a shadowhunter they shouldn’t stop you,” Alec hoped.

Raphael picked up on the lie, he was a vampire after all, but while he was breathing a little heavier than normal he still went outside. Alec and Magnus watched them go from the doorway, Alec praying they’d actually make it back. Otherwise who knew what they’d do after that.

Despite it being dark, Alec wasn’t tired. But since it was dark, going outside was a big no no. Inside however, he didn’t have the strength to investigate any further than he already had. Which left him with unpacking. Except, when he got upstairs, his wasn’t the only bag in Isabelle’s room.

He thought about maybe moving, but that would mean investigating and Alec wasn’t up to seeing what Robert had done with his former room so he dragged his bag to the bed and went to investigate just what of Izzy’s he could throw in another room. 

It turned out his sister had far too many things he never should have seen hidden away in her room. It was no wonder dad didn’t come in here the amount of things he’d had to disinfect his hands after touching. “Bleh,” he shook his hands out, kicking a box to the move pile as he turned back to her clothes. Thongs, bras, seriously Izzy, that wasn’t even a shirt. It half made him wonder if some of these things were even recent. He vaguely remembered Isabelle mentioning a trip to Idris, but he was sure that had been years ago. Which meant, “No. Nope,” not thinking about it. Definitely not thinking about it. 

Despite the horror show he’d been witness to, tossing Izzy’s stuff into piles had actually passed the time quite nicely. He was certainly less stressed than Magnus when the call came up that, “We’re back.” That didn’t mean Alec had been any less worried.

As soon as he ran to the kitchen he looked the pair of them over, making sure Raphael’s half rune was still in place, not smudged, that Ragnor could still pass for an unassuming shadowhunter. That neither of them had so much as a scratch on them, or news that the Clave would be paying them a house visit within the next few hours. 

They were fine however. Unpacking their finds too, Raphael scrubbing at his neck with water as Magnus eagerly looked for his portion of the food. “You wouldn’t believe it but I managed to even find a steady blood supplier,” Ragnor told them, finishing up his tale of scouring the streets of Idris for goods. 

“Are you sure that’s safe?” not that Alec had liked the alternative which was Raphael going hungry, but, surely someone would be suspicious about a guy buying blood.

Yet, “Surprisingly, there are quite a few people buying bags of blood these days. My guess is Circle members up to their old tricks.”

Alec looked to Raphael who clarified, “They used to experiment on blood bags, then mix them in with a known vampire’s supply and watch what happened. A few had holy water. Some were blessed by a priest. Sometimes they just captured a vampire and needed something to feed it on so it wouldn’t completely go mad.” 

“That’s awful,” and probably something that had happened here he realised. 

“That’s not even the half of it,” Raphael murmured.

Alec let out a shaky breath, Ragnor coming to his rescue before anything else could be said, thrusting some chocolate his way and telling him to distract Magnus while he hid the wine. “We’re going to be here for God knows how long. There’s no way I’m going out twice a week because he’s drained our resources dry.”

So Alec distracted Magnus, and the next time he looked there was no more wine. 

They made a late snack once everything was away, Alec remembering the second bag in Izzy’s room. “Are we sharing or something?” He guessed.

Raphael and Ragnor shared a look like Alec was all of twelve years old again. “We thought it best we stay in one room,” Ragnor agreed slowly.

“Hang on a minute,” Magnus barked. “Wh-”

“Asmodeus got you once Magnus,” Ragnor shot out before Magnus could. “He got you and Alec. I know it’s unfair and I know we’re all adults here, but if Alec’s right there’s another greater demon in this realm right now, and we don’t know who or what they want. I’m sorry, but I’m not willing to sacrifice even a moment if it means saving your life.”

There was a moment of silence, Magnus’s slitted eyes that little bit rounder when he muttered, “Fine,” biting into the last of his sandwich. Then, a little more enthusiastically, “Just like old times.”

Ragnor’s face twisted, “Considering you’re getting the floor I doubt it.”

Which prompted another fight, but at least this one could be easily solved. All it took was a bit of maneuvering and there was a second bed in Izzy’s room. The space was a little more cramped now, but considering Jace’s room was now free for Alec to dump all Izzy’s crap inside, it wasn’t the worst. Besides, with no bed in Jace’s room now Alec had somewhere he could stretch himself out. Somewhere that wasn’t the living room where Alec knew there was a werewolf skin rug still sitting by the fireplace.

He was brushing his teeth when the fight started again on who was getting which bed. Apparently Jace had cleaner sheets than Izzy, which meant Ragnor wanted to give Izzy’s makeup stained quilt over to the one who actually wore makeup and wouldn’t make it any worse. Which, in Magnus’s book, was mean and led to him realising he couldn’t just snap a new set of sheets, which led all of them to realise they were going to have to wash these sheets the mundane way when things got dirty. They were going to have to wash all their clothes the mundane way when they got dirty too. 

“Warlocks,” Raphael sighed, already reading in Jace’s bed.

Alec made sure the barricade they’d set up really wouldn’t let any light in, wondering if he should just chance it and slip in next to Raphael. It would mean getting to sleep faster. If he got to sleep. Napping in Ragnor’s study was one thing after all, and Raphael wasn’t really a touchy feely person with anyone who wasn’t Ragnor. Not even Magnus who, according to Ragnor, he saw more of and actually secretly, deep deep down, thought of as family. 

He ended up bouncing onto Izzy’s. Mainly because it was Izzy’s and not the fact that when he turned around he was pretty sure Raphael had read his mind and was sending him a look telling him to just try and take Ragnor’s spot in his bed.

“Alec,” Magnus whined as soon as he settled under the covers, “We were winning.”

What? “Oh.” Right. Well, it looked like the buddy system had already been decided upon without Alec’s knowledge. Not that he minded. Still, “Raphael’s already asleep.”

“He is not,” nevermind that the next time Magnus looked over Raphael was, indeed, feigning sleep. “He’s faking it.”

“Leave the poor boy alone,” Ragnor admonished. “He’s tired enough as it is.” Which started another round about how Raphael was certainly not a ‘boy’ anymore. Hadn’t been since the seventies.

Alec flopped to the pillow, his mind drifting off as the exhaustion of the day caught up with him. He was almost asleep when he felt one of his wings being lifted, Magnus’s annoyed puffs hitting his shoulder not long after. 

_ Something felt off. The boat still swayed beneath him, just like it had last time he’d been here. But unlike last time the sway wasn’t gentle. The boat didn’t drift. Instead it rocked from side to side, bashing against waves and threatening to send Alec overboard.  _

_ There were others around him. Others in other boats, all clinging onto whatever they could get their hands on. Dark circles lingered beneath some eyes. Others were almost nonexistent, sunken so far into their heads they looked like skulls. Their heads snapped so far back with every gust Alec wondered how they were still attached. If the people even still felt pain. _

_ “Of course they do,” rattled around his head, his wings catching the next breeze. _

_ He almost flew overboard, a hand grabbing at his ankle the only thing stopping him. The mast came under his hands in seconds, the wind cutting off not long after that, Alec looking up to see a pair of dark wings overshadowing him. He glanced behind, two yellow eyes, slitted, almost like Magnus’s were it not for the odd way they seemed to look in different directions faced him. Yet somehow Alec knew, even if they were slightly off, they could see him. They could clearly see him.  _

_ He inched his own wings tighter to his back as another gust knocked the boat, his head almost snapping on the pole but he couldn’t look away. There was something just so wrong about what he was seeing.  _

He woke to yellow green eyes. Unlike the ones in his dream that Alec, for the life of him, couldn’t remember the longer he stayed awake, these ones didn’t bother him. They were, dare he say, a little cute. Mostly because they reminded Alec of an actual cat, Magnus’s slits rounded out so big they dwarfed the gold, carefully keeping track of a feather that was just shy of touching his nose. 

Alec stretched them up, following them to stretch his arms too, happily noting that Raphael was still in one piece, snoring away, in the other bed before glancing down at Magnus. “Breakfast?” he asked over a yawn.

Magnus made a face, “Let’s hope I still remember how to work a stove.”

Luckily for both of them Ragnor had put cereal on their list, meaning, after searching for the toaster without luck, they happily sat themselves on the porch, munching away on the sugary loops Idris offered. “What are you doing today then?” Alec asked, the sun still moderately high in the sky. It would be a good few hours until it was dark enough for Alec to safely go for a run. 

“Probably learn how to apply my makeup quickly,” Magnus said.

Alec noted that he was wearing some now. A different colour to last night too. “How long did it take you before I woke up?” 

Magnus didn’t answer, which meant quite long. Alec shoved another spoon in his mouth as he thought about that. He didn’t know if he was pleased or not that Magnus had went through all that trouble this morning. He knew it probably wasn’t all for Alec’s benefit, but if it wasn’t a little bit for him not to see Magnus go without, then why didn’t Magnus apply it once Alec had woke up.

Maybe he was overthinking this. He didn’t know how long Magnus had been awake for after all. Maybe he was just wasting time until someone decided to show some signs of life. 

That was probably it.

“You want any help?” Alec offered. “I’m not too good, but I can’t be terrible either. Izzy made me do hers sometimes when she came over.” Quite a lot during her fourteenth year really. Alec was sort of her little guinea pig. What wax was best to use on her legs, what colours would compliment her skin tone, or just colours she liked in general, what nail varnish she liked. Alec wasn’t going anywhere, homeschooled by Ragnor after all, which meant he didn’t have anyone to look nice for, or any parents telling him off for looking like a mess. So when Izzy came around, she always brought some new torture device with her. 

Magnus grinned at him like he knew exactly what Alec had been thinking about. Then again, he was pretty sure any boy with a sister had been experimented on at some stage. Still, “As sweet as that offer is, I think it’s something I need to rediscover on my own. But I will keep you in mind if I find myself a bit lost.”

Alec rolled his eyes.

“What about you? What treasures do you have hidden here?”

Alec shrugged, “probably nothing. Dad will have gotten rid of anything that I once had. Even if he didn’t, I only came here once. He made me sleep in his old trophy room. I thought it was just so I would ‘soak in’ some killer instinct dad always hoped I’d have for Downworlders.”

“I’m guessing that’s not what he actually intended for you to learn,” Magnus said.

Alec didn’t really have to nod, they both knew, at this point, that it was true. So he turned to other things. What actually would he do here? He couldn’t just laze about all day. There were no more magic lessons now either. He could probably take up woodworking again, maybe play around with his bow. “I’ll come up with something,” he decided to leave it as.

“Well,” Magnus sighed, getting to his feet, “Yell if you get bored.”

Alec promised, getting up himself to start stretching in Jace’s empty room.

Around his fourteenth push up Alec’s eyes drifted over to Jace’s things. There weren’t many of them. A few posters here and there, some music sheets on his drawers. Mainly Jace kept this room fairly tidy, which, really, shouldn’t surprise him since, again, they barely came to Idris to begin with. But considering Izzy’s monstrosity of a room, they had spent enough time here at one point to get comfortable.

He rolled onto his side, then his back, staring down the wardrobe doors. Realistically, Alec should check to see if there’s anything in there he could wear, or Raphael, or Ragnor or any of them really. While Alec did, actually, know how to use a washing machine, that wasn’t to say he was going to do it anytime soon. Nor were the others. He was pretty sure they didn’t even have any laundry detergent, which meant, until they ran out of food or Raphael decided he wanted to eat one of them for his morning munchies, they weren’t doing laundry anytime soon. 

Still, it was an invasion of privacy. 

He rolled back onto his front, starting his count once again. 

Ragnor woke up just as the sun started to set, poking his head around Jace’s door to ask if there was any food on the go. “Sorry,” Alec shrugged, “I haven’t been down in a while.”

Ragnor’s face twisted as he sulked his way out, the smell of bacon drifting up not long after. Alec was near salivating by the time it was done. He wasn’t the only one. Ragnor was fighting off hands from both sides as Magnus tried to wheedle a slice or two out of him. “You both know how to cook,” Ragnor pointed out.

“You really want me in the kitchen?” Alec reminded him, the incident with the pasta coming to mind.

Ragnor’s eyes narrowed, “that’s fair,” he said at last, then to Magnus, “But you certainly can. The pan’s right there, make your own food.”

“Wh-” They heard nothing but the injustices of the world after that, Magnus whining the whole time he ignored the bacon completely and fetched some of their other fresh ingredients to start an actual meal. 

“So dramatic,” Ragnor sighed. But even Ragnor was starting to feel the strain of not using his magic when he realised several things he’d left behind at home and had no way of getting. It wasn’t like he was allowed to his other house either. Mom had made it clear that while the warlocks may not search it, the Circle would, and since they knew Alec was a warlock, and Alec was Maryse’s son, especially after the drama that just happened, they would be knocking at his door at some point. It was best not to chance going there at all.

Raphael woke near sunset, and took one look at all of them before slinking off outside with a sigh about warlocks so long Alec actually feared for his undead lungs. Alec soon ran out too, keeping his wings close to his back as he took the trail into the woods outside the manor. He kept it short, knowing, somewhere, Raphael was probably keeping an ear on him. That wasn’t to say Ragnor hadn’t worried. He was on the porch, a flashlight and book in hand. He didn’t say anything to Alec but Alec knew he’d been waiting for him. Just like he would be waiting for Raphael to come in too. 

Overall, it was a very boring first day in Idris. Followed by an equally boring second day. The only excitement Alec really got was when he was asleep. Nightmares he thought they were, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember them when he woke. A lot of dreams were like that he supposed. That still didn’t mean he enjoyed them. He felt like he’d ran a marathon most nights, his heart beating in his throat when he woke. 

The others didn’t appear to be sleeping well either. Ragnor, he heard after catching Raphael worrying at him, woke up frequently through the night, or, well day. Always checking that none of them were gone, that the house hadn’t been broken into, and since Ragnor was awake that meant Raphael was. While vampires didn’t exactly need sleep, Raphael more than capable of staying awake through the day, that didn’t mean it was any less pleasurable to be woken from sleep when he finally found it. The only one who actually slept through the night appeared to be Magnus, and even then Alec woke more than once to a kick in his shin or hurried nothings murmured on his shoulder.

“This is ridiculous,” Ragnor sighed a week from when they moved in. “We need wards. We need some other layer of protection.”

“No magic,” Raphael muttered, and that really said something when Raphael was the one reminding them of the rules.

“A ridiculous idea. I can’t believe I agreed to it. I’m not the one they’re tracking,” Ragnor paced the room. 

Raphael raised a brow at Alec, the two of them staring all the more intensely. “You know they know you have him. They’re gonna be tracking you.”

Alec strained his eyes wider, feeling one of them twitch. Ragnor paced back over to them, “Maybe we should go to my house then. I already have wards set up, it’s within Alicante so the demon towers protect it and we don’t have to be trapped in three rooms.”

“Ragnor,” Raphael sighed, and that really said it all. He knew why they couldn’t go to his house. He knew all of this. He was just frustrated. Frustrated, tired and far too scared of where he was currently staying to relax for even a moment. 

Alec blinked.

“Yes!” Raphael hissed, his hand coming onto the table, “Pay up.”

Alec grumbled, digging into his pocket for the wifi password. He never should have told Raphael he had it. Or that there was wifi here. A fact Alec only found out because he’d been in Max’s room looking for a decent book and heard something chime. “You know you can’t contact anyone.” Raphael waved him off, digging his phone out and typing in the password. “Don’t give it to them either.” He got a dark look from Ragnor but his word stood. He didn’t trust them with it. Raphael, maybe he trusted. True, he had no choice now, but Raphael had basically cut off all contact with the clan after he realised Camille had fled and with it the clan altogether. Right now the vampires were hiding around New York, all of them ignoring their phones and pretending to lead a very mundane life. Apart from that Simon guy.

Magnus and Ragnor however? He knew as soon as Magnus had wifi he’d be harassing who knew how many warlocks looking for who betrayed him. Ragnor on the other hand, would be calling Cat or Tessa or any number of his friends, and while that was all well and good, it was better that they had as little contact with the outside world as they could. 

Raphael handed the password back over, standing with his phone that little bit closer to his face. “If you need me I’ll be watching cat videos on the porch.”

Eight days after they’d moved in Alec grew tired of watching videos on youtube and went looking for something to actually do. Like a project or a book that wasn’t made for eight year olds. Something he could actually think about instead of watching the walls. 

Grabbing his bow, and one of the shields off the walls he started up the stairs. 

The solar room was first, somewhere Alec had made sure to steer clear of in his initial investigation. The bedrooms had been what was important that first night. Alec braced himself today however, standing up against the wall as he slowly edged the door open. 

Nothing came shooting out, but still Alec kept his shield high, his body low as he crept into the room. The sun hit him as soon as he passed the doorway, the room hot from the thick glass and heavy walls. There wasn’t much in here. After carefully opening drawers and sliding things off shelves all Alec really found of value were a few letters his grandparents had written his father. It wasn’t a complete bust however. Alec now had one more room he could go in. 

The bedrooms were next, and the first few were his family’s so they didn’t really need looking into again. The apartment was after however. His parents apartment. Alec considered the door for all of three seconds before moving onto the next one. Whatever horrors were inside could keep their secrets. The apartment next to his parents he was pretty sure was his grandparents. Or had been. Again, Alec was careful in opening it, then had to outright put the shield down when he had to work out how to pick a lock.

“You know Ragnor should really have been teaching me things like this,” he grouched as Magnus easily picked the lock without magic.

“He probably didn’t want to look like a bad influence.” Magnus grinned as the door clicked open. “Like he isn’t the craftiest person I know. Did I ever tell you about our travels in Peru?”

Alec smiled, hefting his shield back up. “I don’t think so,” he dragged Magnus behind him, inching the door open.

Again, nothing happened, but Alec still wasn’t taking any chances in this place. Out of everywhere however, he didn’t imagine this apartment would hold much in the way of scarring. His grandparents, what he knew from Izzy and mom, were a little less… practical than his dad had been. They were shadowhunters who liked to keep their head down and do their job. 

Sure enough, there weren’t any vampire fangs stuck to lights or mermaid scale bath tiles. “What are we looking for here?” Magnus asked. “Treasure? Jewels? Family secrets?”

“I was just looking for something to do,” Alec said, “But I’m all for finding any of that stuff.” There had to be something valuable in this house. 

“And I suppose typical treasure hunting etiquette is applied here. Or are we going for the good old ‘finders keepers’ route?” 

As tempting as it was to split it fifty fifty, Alec could go for a little competition right now, “Finders keepers.”

Magnus gave him a shark like grin, Alec guessing that was the right answer.

They dove to opposite ends of the room, Alec trying their wardrobe as Magnus picked the locks on their drawers. Old clothes drenched in the fading smell of perfume drifted out to him, Alec pushing dresses and jackets aside. He felt sort of bad when he came across a jewelry drawer. He didn’t want to actually rob his grandparents, even if they weren’t, technically, related to him. Still, it was interesting to see what sort of things his dad kept hidden inside this room. Things that Izzy might like. 

He pushed the drawer back in, rustling around through the boxes of shoes and hats and all sorts of other trinkets his grandparents had acquired through the years. When nothing really interesting emerged, he moved onto the trunk at the edge of their bed. “Magnus,” he paid attention that time as Magnus twisted the steel pins in the lock. “Thank you.” He made a note to himself to steal some of grandmas pins to try out on other locks later. The trunk opened, a few dusty boxes Alec had to whack Magnus’s hand away from greeting him first. “You have your part of the room.”

Magnus pouted, thankfully not mentioning he was the one who’d picked the lock as he went back under the bed. He opened the first few boxes, a bunch of letters tied up together inside. The next held trinkets, an old watch, some jewelry again. He left that one alone, digging deeper and coming out with more letters. Some documents of land the Lightwoods had once owned. Probably still did own actually. Photos were in there too. Ones of his dad as a baby, his grandparents with their parents. Mainly they were of the two of them, Alec taking a minute to look through them, wondering what they would have thought of him. If they would have hated him too. 

They probably would have. According to his dad they hadn’t even wanted him to marry his mom. If they found out Alec hadn’t been dad’s, even if it was… out of her control, he doubted they would have reacted as kindly as they looked in these photos. He set them aside, picking the letters out instead. 

“Anything?” Magnus called.

Alec read through the first few pages that had been tied together, immediately throwing them back down again, “I think I just found my grandparents dirty letters.” Ew. Ew. Ew. 

There was a laugh, Magnus snaking his way out the other side, “Well that’ll make me breaking this find easier. I found their porn stash.”

“Nooo,” Why? Just why? 

Magnus was outright chortling as he bounced on the bed, leaning over the trunk lid to wave an old playboy in Alec’s face. “I have to say this certainly humanises your family.”

“Stop.” He wasn’t looking. He definitely wasn’t looking because he did not have to know what his grandparents found…  _ arousing. _

“Mr Lightwood didn’t have the worst taste either-” Alec snatched it out of Magnus’s hand, burying it, and the letters, as far down the trunk as he could. “I wonder if that’s the shadowhunter edition.”

“Stop,” Alec whined.

Magnus grinned over at him, taking one pile of the letters still left out. He flicked through the first few, his smile growing before he came to one he handed over to Alec. It was his dad’s writing. About his mom of all things too.  _ She’s pregnant and says it’s mine.  _ Alec had always thought they’d gotten married before he was even a thought in their minds.  _ Valentine approves of the match and that’s all we need. _ Some other things followed, his dad asking for the family ring. How he’d just take it even if they didn’t want to hand it over. “The others are by your father too,” Magnus said, handing the pile over.

Alec hesitated a moment before taking them. He tied them back up. “Can we go to our room before trying the next apartment?”

“Sure.” Magnus even took it back now for him. That and a bracelet he said belonged to one of his dear friends which had fallen into Shadowhunter hands after a raid. 

Upon hearing that, Alec showed Magnus the jewelry. Screw not robbing from the dead. They’d stolen it first, and it wasn’t like it would even put a dent in the Lightwood fortune for some of their valuables to go missing. 

Needless to say Magnus was a little more irked and a lot more glittered up by the time they walked back to the room, setting their finds on their bed before venturing out once more into the manor. They tried three more rooms before coming upon some older letters, some journals too, of people Magnus had met once upon a time. Alec let him keep them for himself.

They hit three more rooms before calling it a day. Mainly because of what they found in the last room. It had all been fine, they’d found some old gentleman’s room, Magnus digging out every ounce of pornography the Lightwoods had hidden away in this manor, and then he’d found the journal. Not even a journal. His dad had hidden it in an okay place. As far as Alec knew no one really came in here. His mom certainly didn’t. Gender roles might be a little less stressed upon these days, but Alec knew there were still places in the manor that she wasn’t allowed in. Places Izzy wasn’t allowed in too, which had her on the phone to Alec about the injustices of the world in general. Considering Izzy was dad’s favourite, Alec thought it wasn’t so much he didn’t want to give her the run of the house more so that there were things in this house he knew she wouldn’t approve of. She liked Alec after all, and with her downworlder boyfriends who knows what Isabelle had heard from dad over the years. 

The drawer was beneath one of the tables, a small thing embedded into the golden top. Magnus had managed to jimmy it open no problem, Alec still recovering from Anna Lightwood’s graphic descriptions of the female body Magnus had read out to him when the journal was found with an “Aha! More porn.”

Torture porn maybe, but that was about as sexualised as it got. It was one thing to hear that his parents used to be in the Circle and another to have actual evidence of it. Whoever had conducted the investigation had obviously missed the Lightwood manor entirely because the amount of evidence in here of their crimes against Downworlders were disgusting. 

Alec felt sick the moment Magnus turned the first page, the head of a girl, a man who had to be Valentine, held in one hand. His foot was on her body, his followers surrounding them both. A fresh kill, still bleeding, and looking on like she’d found the angel Raziel herself was his mom. 

His breath came short as Magnus flicked through, Alec holding out onto the hope that it had just been an absent memento, that the rest of it was some sort of journal about being young and, just, something that wasn’t an almost scrapbook of some of the most vile things Alec had ever seen in his life. “How did they get away with it?” he heard himself asking.

Both of them knew however, that, “If we hadn’t been such a threat the Clave would have likely let the Circle wipe us all out.” It was only the prospect of losing to the Downworld that had made them take action and disband the Circle. Magnus shut the journal, “You shouldn’t have to see that.”

“It’s happening again,” Alec reminded him.

Magnus’s eyes met his, “We both know I’m not talking about the killings.” More the person who was photographed holding most of the dead bodies like trophies. 

Alec felt sick. 

Magnus took his hand, locking the door behind him before taking Alec back to the safe parts of the house. Ragnor had some of the letters they’d found in hand, a grin on his face before it fell, Alec seeing Magnus shake his head out the corner of his eye. “I think that’s enough exploring for us today. What are you up to?”

Ragnor’s eyes flickered between the two of them before, “I was thinking of asking dear Alexander for the wifi password so I could do some baking.”

Magnus’s head had never swivelled so fast, “We have wifi here?”

He was sufficiently distracted after that trying to keep Magnus and Ragnor from gaining access to the internet. In the end he had to compromise, Magnus’s head on his chest as they both watched some mundane drama on Alec’s phone. Not that Alec was complaining. Especially since Magnus had lost his shirt between the first and second episode, the bedcovers keeping them warm as Alec’s eyes drooped.

_ The next time he opened his eyes he found himself standing in a barren field. The ground was dry and cracked beneath his feet, the wind nonexistent. Alec flexed his wings, fluttering them gently and feeling something like air capable of lifting him up if he so wished.  _

_ The sky was red when he looked up, the clouds darker, almost black with birds circling endlessly between them. He heard talking, his feet drifting closer until he saw a man he knew he’d seen in his dreams before. All of them he’d seen in his dreams before. Except the two he’d seen in real life. Asmodeus, his yellow, green eyes shining bright, even if his image was faded. The other, horned, Alec mistaking for a warlock. He wasn’t a warlock. Even in his dreams Alec could feel the power radiating from all of them. Like a physical force it warned him to stay clear.  _

_ The third, faint too, Alec remembered now the dream world was open to him. He’d told Alec something. He’d been there, the angel cupping Alec’s cheek, the frown on his face. Except, the wings weren’t as angelic as he first thought they were. They didn’t feather like Alec’s, instead they arched up in translucent patterns like a fly. The only one with wings like him was the last, the one who’d dragged him through misty planes last night. His eyes weren’t yellow however. Not like they had been before. Instead they were a brown green haze, glowing in parts.  _

_ He couldn’t hear them clearly where he was. Getting closer however, ended up with Alec on his back, familiar slits staring down at him, only these weren’t attached to Asmodeus. _

_ Magnus placed a finger to his mouth, crawling off Alec and behind the rock Alec realised he must have been hiding behind before. He dragged himself up to his elbows, shuffling over until he was looking on, too, at a meeting, he had a feeling, he wasn’t supposed to know about.  _

_ He could only hear parts from Magnus’s rock. Things like, “almost enough,” “warlocks are cooperating.” and “hold on a little longer.” Not enough to really figure out what it was they were waiting for, but enough for Alec to realise they were working together, that Ragnor had been right when he said demons always had ulterior motives.  _

That didn’t mean he remembered any of it when he woke. Just a feeling in his gut that something wasn’t right.

Magnus was already up when Alec got out of bed, the table was set for two as well, Magnus appearing with an apron tied around his waist and breakfast in his hands. “Sleep well?” Magnus asked.

Alec shook his head, rubbing his eyes as he grabbed a fork. “You?”

Magnus shook his head too. “Not to worry though. We have all day to make ourselves feel better, and I, for one, distinctly remember asking you out not so long ago.”

Alec’s fork paused. “Oh?” He had honestly forgotten about that. He had said yes too, trapped down there as he had been. “A drink right?” 

Magnus nodded, “And if I know old houses like this, there’s bound to be a wine cellar somewhere.”

Ah. “Treasure hunting again?” That Alec could get behind. He was all for wasting a few hours drinking, but not the entire day. He was a bit too restless today. 

“Are you saying you didn’t enjoy yourself yesterday?” 

Apart from the whole scarred for life thing, “Yeah. Yeah I did.”

“It shouldn’t be too bad either,” Magnus said, digging into his own food, “I doubt there’s anything too bad hidden under this place.”

Words that couldn’t be more wrong. 

They hadn’t even started through the underground of the Lightwood manor before they encountered a door with an eyeball for the handle. An actual resin rounded eyeball that Alec didn’t even have to ask to know it was real. He heard Magnus shudder out a breath next to him, Alec doing his best not to squeeze too hard as he turned the handle, the flashlight on his phone lighting up the first hallway.

“Remind me to never be in the same room as Robert again,” Magnus murmured.

“You and me both.” He certainly was starting to compose a long written thank you note to Ragnor as they passed a mounted Griffin head, Alec pushing it to the back of his mind as he reminded himself the trophy room was upstairs near the back of the manor. 

That didn’t mean there might not have been a worse room down here. Robert had to actually make these decorations of his somewhere after all. 

Alec reached back, his fingers tangling with Magnus’s as they passed into another hall. 

On and on the tunnels beneath the manor went. Some of them landed Alec and Magnus outside, the old cemetery of Lightwoods past popping up more than once. One of the tunnels led to the woods, Alec keeping that tunnel in mind as they went back in. He would see about scouring the woods too, making a real escape plan. Magnus shuffled them down another corridor, the stones growing cooler. “That means we’re further underground,” Magnus told him. Meaning, most likely, they were about to find some dead bodies, or they were about to find the wine cellar.

Thankfully it was the first one, Magnus breathing out a sigh of relief next to him as Alec turned his light onto the numerous bottles just waiting to be drunk.

Magnus did three whole tours before stopping in front of Alec and telling him to take his hoodie off. The slither of excitement that ran through him was easily squashed as Magnus lay a few bottles on top of it. Then some more until he wrapped it up and handed it to Alec. “This way we won’t break any.” They could also carry much more than if they just used their hands. Magnus had to sacrifice his own shirt, Alec subtly angling the flashlight that little bit down. He may have told himself it was so he didn’t blind Magnus as he fetched his own bottles, but Alec knew it was also, a little, so he could get a better look at the chest he still hadn’t seen properly. He’d been too tired and traumatised last night to really be in the mood to ogle. True, he was still a little traumatised now, in fact he was thinking about burning this whole place to the ground as soon as it was safe to leave, but he was awake enough that he could garner a little bit of interest to the attractive warlock who’d told him they were going to ‘have a drink together’. 

Magnus gave him a look as soon as he rounded the corner, Alec pretending he didn’t know what it meant as he picked up his hoodie and started leading them out. 

Ragnor, like some sort of wine hound, had sensed from his slumber there was alcohol afoot and was waiting for them in the kitchen. Glasses had already been brought out, a cookbook too with delicacies that paired well with good wine. “Raphael’s such a tattle tale,” Magnus huffed, sliding the bottles onto the counter.

“Raphael is no such thing. Now what vintages am I working with here?” thus was Alec’s afternoon.

No date. No intimate setting. Instead he was babysitting two centuries old warlocks as they fought over which dish they wanted to make for supper now they actually had a proper drink to enjoy it with. It was still a fun afternoon regardless. Alec also learned more about wine than he ever thought he’d want to know. 

Raphael, the tattle tale, came down at sunset. He looked a little put out, a look Alec had actually seen more than once when they’d been home. He missed eating, he’d told Ragnor that much in Alec’s company. Missed how nice it used to smell to him. How it used to taste. He missed the fact he couldn’t enjoy a meal with someone like the rest of them were right now, Raphael delegated to his mug instead of fighting over who was getting the last tortilla.

“Maybe Raphael should cook for us tomorrow,” Alec suggested.

He got a glare for that, “Yes, tell the vampire who can’t eat to cook for you. What a grand idea.”

Alec smothered a grin, “Come on, we’ve all cooked at least once. It’s your turn tomorrow.”

Raphael was still glaring, yet before Alec went upstairs he heard him ask Ragnor if they had enough for Mole. If nothing else it would give Raphael something to do that wasn’t lounging around or investigating the forest. Alec knew he was feeling the boredom just like the rest of them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos are welcome. I love reading them even if I don't respond to all of them.


	3. Chapter 3

“You’re disappointed,” Magnus said the next morning, the two of them eating in the field just outside the left wing. 

“I’m not.” Was he supposed to be?

“Yesterday. I promised you a drink together and instead Ragnor wrangled me into cooking for him.” Cooking together, but Alec kept his mouth shut about that.

“I didn’t mind.” The food had been more than good so Alec didn’t have reason to complain. He also learned a little about the history of that food and exactly where Ragnor and Magnus had found the recipe. 

“Well I did,” Magnus said, “So I’m going to make up for it. Raphael should be keeping Ragnor busy looking for spices all afternoon so why don’t we do something that doesn’t involve us wanting to erase our memories?”

He was all for that. “What did you have in mind?”

What Magnus had in mind was the two of them stealing a bottle of wine, some of their last few snacks and climbing up to the roof. This high up, Alec could just see the start of the houses that merged into the town. If he’d been able to use his glamour he could have went, could have pretended that everything was alright as he bought coffee and food without anyone blinking twice at him. Unfortunately that wasn’t his life right now. 

Not that he was complaining. Magnus was more than making up for them not being able to be normal by telling Alec another wild adventure he and Ragnor had gone on in their youth. It all sounded so fanciful. Adventure. Pirates. Sightseeing, drinking, gambling, living through literal revolutions be that in society or technology. “Sounds amazing.”

“It was,” Magnus agreed. “Enough about me though. What about you? You told me a little about yourself, but surely you do more than make cat boxes and fight with Raphael for Ragnor’s affection.”

He disputed the second one, but the first was true, and Alec had been a little disappointed to see no cats wandering around the Lightwood estate. He was sure there had been at one point. Izzy mentioned it or something. “I guess I do some things. You know about the archery,” Which Alec needed to set up before he forgot again. “And- I don’t know, usually I’m studying.”

Magnus’s foot nudged his own, “Studying what?”

“Magic,” Alec shrugged, “History, literature. Mundane things since Ragnor said I could go to university if I wanted. He hired some fighting instructors for me too.” He sounded quite spoilt when he put it like that. Ragnor hired all manner of tutors for him in everything Alec took an interest in. But, “I think he was worried I was going to run away. I did once, a few months after I went to live with him. He’s always been a little careful with me.” 

“He loves you,” Magnus said simply. 

“I know.” He did. Why else would Alec still be around? “He doesn’t shout around me though,” Alec had noticed it through the years. He’d let Alec scream himself hoarse at him, but Ragnor rarely raised his voice at Alec. The only time he could remember was when he used to call Alec in for supper, shouting more out of necessity to be heard than anger. 

“Do you want him to shout around you?” Magnus countered.

Alec shrugged again, “I guess I just don’t want him to be different around me.” Ragnor shouted at Magnus after all. Not in front of Alec, again, but when Alec was out of the room his voice definitely raised. Not in a bad way, again, more jokingly, Magnus giving back as good as he got as well. He shook that thought off, “Sorry, we’re not supposed to be talking about Ragnor.” Or things like running away. “How many cats do you actually own?”

Magnus’s mouth fluttered for a moment before, “Twelve. Although I’m sure the alley cats have fled back to their usual haunts. Cat has Chairman as well.” Which meant he didn’t have to worry too much for his fluffy children. They talked about them a lot. About how Raphael brought him some sometimes when he went out on his walks in New York. One time he even brought a whole box of cats, one of them inside still visiting Magnus every now and then. The sun started setting, Alec putting his hands behind his head as Magnus started on the pretty houses his cats had to sleep in even if Magnus wasn’t there. One of them Magnus had even painted himself. “I take it Ragnor painted the others,” Magnus guessed.

“He likes to have something to do,” Alec agreed. 

“That he does.”

He hadn’t been so flighty lately with Raphael there. Yet another reason Alec was sure there was something going on there. He was tempted to ask Magnus about it. But Raphael had been awake even before the sun set. As much as Alec liked the guy, even he was wary of how much he could hear, and how much he purposely tried to hear. So he pushed off asking, again, and asked about what Magnus did as High Warlock. 

It was interesting, after that, listening to what other warlocks did for a living. Magnus contracted out his services, while Catarina was a nurse. One of Magnus’s friends was a conservationist. The other an art collector. University lecturer. Librarian. Warlocks had jobs all over the world, and Alec had never really thought about what he was going to do with himself now that adulthood was literally staring him in the face. He had eternity stretched out in front of him. What was he going to do with it?

“What did you want to be when you were younger?” Alec asked. The moon was high in the sky, the stars shining down on them. The demon towers glowed faintly in the distance, Alec only able to see their beam, yet still it wasn’t enough to cloud the vast light of the sky. 

“Alive,” Magnus answered after a moment. “Things were different when I was a child. And not everyone is born with prospects laid out in front of them.”

Alec didn’t press. He didn’t feel like it was right to. Still, “Alive is good.”

Magnus hummed in agreement. “Are you thinking about what you’re going to do after all of this?”

“Yeah.” Maybe he could look into university. Maybe an American college. They had more classes people could take there instead of just the one subject. He could maybe try a few things out, see what he liked. “I always thought, when I was younger, that something would happen, and mom would come get me and I’d grow up fighting demons and,” he sighed. “I think I’ve been too focused on it.”

“You’re finding yourself. Nothing wrong with that,” Magnus said, his foot nuding Alec’s again, lingering. “I’m still finding myself too. Everyone is. I became a High Warlock because I felt like I could help people doing it. I enjoy my job but I still think I could do more. I don’t know how, but maybe one day I’ll figure it out.”

Around three in the morning Ragnor called up to them that supper was ready. Mole, as it turned out, was really good. That or Raphael was some sort of whiz in the kitchen and had been hiding it all this time by sulking. He wasn’t sulking tonight however, looking almost eager as everyone dug in. It turned out it was an old recipe his mama used to make before and after they moved to New York. The last time he’d had it was when he visited his sister Rosa. He hadn’t enjoyed it, mainly because vampires couldn’t enjoy food anymore, but he remembered how much he’d liked it. Enough that Rosa had remembered and told her so-called ‘nephew’ how much her big brother had asked for it as a child. 

“Did you have a lot of sisters?” Alec asked.

Raphael nodded, “A little brother too. We moved to New York after papa went off with a new girl. I probably have some half siblings still running around somewhere.” Alec bet he knew exactly where. Raphael was just that sort of person, clinging to whatever last vestiges of his old life he could. “Most of them moved abroad. Some went back to Mexico. Only Rosa stayed in New York.”

Alec let Ragnor and Magnus drag the rest out of him. Of dancing with his sister until dance halls became discos. Of having to pretend he was no longer her brother but her nephew when it became too questionable about why he hadn’t aged. About Magnus sneaking Raphael into the mortuary when his mother died so he could pay his respects before she was taken to the church. A lot of his stories had Magnus in them. “He’s sort of like a son to me,” Magnus told him when they were left to do the dishes. By hand. “He can think differently if he likes but he’s family. Just like my other friends.”

“They’re nice people,” Alec told him since they were. What he’d met of Tessa she seemed like a genuinely nice woman. Quiet. A little more to herself these days, but nice all the same. Cat was a nurse which basically said everything there was about her. No one with her powers would subject themselves to helping the sick unless they were genuinely a nice person on the inside. Just like Magnus, a man who was more concerned about what happened to the children than where he was when he woke, kidnapped, in a strange place. “I’m glad you have them.”

Magnus gave him a small smile, “Me too.”

It was a nice day all in all. Yet Alec still woke the next with a feeling in his gut that something was wrong. 

Magnus was still squirming in his sleep when Alec decided he wasn’t going to try and stay in bed a few more hours. Making sure the quilt was high enough Magnus wouldn’t miss his wing, Alec slipped out of bed, running the bath he’d found in Jace’s room and soaking for half an hour or so. Getting out, he debated only a moment before slowly opening Jace’s wardrobe and fetching out a shirt. Raphael promised tomorrow night he’d go get more supplies. Not tonight because apparently Ragnor’s blood supplier was busy tonight. A fact that made even Raphael antsy when they all saw how low he was running on blood yesterday. 

He closed it quickly, promising to buy Jace a new shirt as he ripped the back out.

“Okay now what?” Magnus asked later, the two of them sitting in the bathroom as Alec watched the youtube video for the fifteenth time.

“Now you get some kind of black stick, like a pencil, or a pen or something and run it around your eyes,” he didn’t get the makeup challenge. What was even the point of it? Wasn’t it just wasting makeup? 

“You mean eyeliner?” Magnus asked, sharp teeth grinning at him.

“If that’s what it is then yeah,” He hit play, watching the girl on screen layer it smoothly onto her face. “It’s sort of like light at the bit near your nose then thicker near the corner.”

Magnus thought about that for a moment before dragging the pencil to the corner of his nose, “It starts here?”

“No.”

“You just said the bit near my nose, this is the bit near my nose.”

“I meant your eye.”

“You said my nose,” Magnus laughed, Alec knowing he was messing with him. Magnus knew how to put his own makeup on, he knew where eyeliner went. This ‘taking Alec’s instructions literally’ thing was just something he’d started doing after he’d laughed so hard he said his stomach was hurting. 

“You know what I mean and you know it. Now make sure the bit at the end is thicker, it ends in a point too.”

Magnus carefully lined the top of his lid, “Well which is it?”

“Which is what?”

“Thicker or pointy? It can’t be both Alexander.”

He was seriously never going to do this again. “It’s a triangle, thick bit near your eye, small bit pointing off it.” Thus it continued. 

Overall Alec thought he’d done a pretty okay job in getting Magnus to look semi decent. Magnus just thought it was hilarious, comparing his own makeup to the video and pointing out everything he’d missed. Yet he didn’t change it, the two of them setting up Alec’s archery range with Magnus’s eyes looking like a botched sunset the whole time. 

The sun was setting faster than Alec liked, yet still he got a few good hours of shooting in. Magnus also managed to worm his way into a demonstration again, pouting up at Alec until he bodily moved Magnus into the right position. After, once they’d hung Alec’s bow back on a rack that used to house bones of some unfortunate creature, Magnus remembered, “Ragnor organised you fighting instructors?”

“Yeah.” Martial arts, kickboxing, fencing, “Why?”

Magnus’s lips pursed before, “Nothing,” slipped out.

“No,” really? They were playing this game. “Come on, you had a point there, what was it?”

“Well,” he dithered, his finger trailing along the kitchen counter, “I was just thinking about how dangerous our lives are lately, and how nice it might be to learn a few moves without having to rely on my magic. Since you’re a little experienced…”

“Oh.” Magnus wanted him to teach him a few moves. Meaning they’d be together, in the same room, sweaty. An interesting thought in theory, but Alec had trained enough to know sweat was not a good look on people. Not a good look on him anyway. Still, if Magnus was serious then it wasn’t the worst idea to teach him a few moves. It would mean their cover might be saved if they could rely on their fists instead of their magic. So, “I don’t see why not. Tomorrow though, yeah?”

“Of course,” Magnus agreed, happily pulling the last of their food out of the pantry now he’d gotten his way. 

Thankfully, Raphael wasn’t being a shit tonight since he didn’t tell Ragnor about the self defence lesson happening tomorrow. Meaning, once Alec had woken himself up, him and Magnus were completely on their own. 

He started with the basics, Magnus needing adjustments here and there. But his form wasn’t terrible, and he picked up things rather quickly. That didn’t mean he was the best, which was why, after an hour, when Magnus proposed a little sparring match, Alec thought about declining. “Maybe after a few more lessons?” Alec was still pretty rusty himself, besides, he didn’t want to injure Magnus on their first go.

Yet, “Come on. It’ll be fun.” then when that got a no, “I’ll make a wager with you. Loser has to… hmm, let’s see. Loser has to do the dishes for the week.” 

See now that was tempting because as much as Alec didn’t mind doing the dishes, there were only so many mugs of blood he could wash out before feeling a little sick. Still, “I don’t know.”

“We’ll add the laundry on there too?” Since the pile that was waiting for them was way bigger than any of them had been expecting. 

Alec scuffed the floor, “are we talking just our laundry or Ragnor and Raphael’s too?” Since some of those waistcoats both of them owned were hand wash only and Alec wasn’t here for that.

“Just ours,” Magnus said, no doubt realising that when he lost he could have been signing himself up for that workload too. “Oh and when I win I get one of your feathers.”

A weird request but “Okay.” 

They shook hands, Magnus asking, “Should we share saliva too? Make it more official?”

“Ew,” Alec grinned, Magnus bopping his nose. He made sure everything was pushed back and that they had their boundaries before settling himself into a stance, “First to the floor?”

“If you want me on my back all you have to do is ask Alexander,” Magnus bounced around a little before settling too, “But yes, first to the floor.”

He nodded, the two circling each other before Alec found out he’d been well and truly played. Magnus could fight. He felt like an idiot because of course Magnus could fight. He was over four hundred years old, he had all these exciting stories about pirates and Queens, if Magnus didn’t know how to fight then he was a very lucky man. 

He was a little rusty however, that much Alec could tell. More used to using his magic than his hands, but he was quick, taking advantage of Alec’s top heavy weight and trying to unbalance him. Unluckily for Magnus, Alec knew how to keep his balance this far down the line. He was twenty three after all, and after being pushed over a hundred times as a kid, he’d taught himself to use his wings to his advantage.

It was a pretty interesting match. One that came to an end with Alec on his ass and Magnus grinning triumphant above him. “I win.”

Alec hung his head back, “You cheated.” Still, “Well done though.” he wasn’t a sore loser. 

“Thank you and I didn’t cheat, I said I wanted a lesson and a lesson was what I got. My experience of what was being taught was never brought to light.” Which, now that he thought back on it, was actually true.

“You’re sneaky,” Alec still accused, getting back to his feet, “And you’d better pray for your clothes because I don’t have a clue how to use that washing machine downstairs.” he would figure it out however. He wasn’t petty enough to actually ruin Magnus’s clothes after all.

Something Magnus knew since he didn’t tell Alec to be nice. Instead he chuckled, coming forward to do a slow circle of Alec’s person. 

Alec felt very much on display right now. “What are you doing?”

Magnus came to stand in front of him, “Deciding which feather I want.” he gave a big sigh, “But alas I can’t make my mind up. It looks like I might need to do a thorough investigation.”

Alec could feel his lips twitch, “Thorough huh?”

Magnus hummed back, “At least an hour, maybe longer.” 

“Don’t take too long. Otherwise who’s going to wash your clothes?” They were close. Close enough Alec could see the way Magnus’s pupil’s rounded out slightly, angling down too. 

“Clothes?” this close it was more of a murmur, “In that case I think I’ll just become a nudist.”

He couldn’t help it, he sniggered, Magnus catching him just as he bent forward, their lips smiling into each others as they broke apart to laugh and kiss again. Their teeth clacked together at one point, which just made them laugh harder, their noses brushing together until they were breaking apart, Alec hoping Magnus didn’t catch the little snort he let out as they calmed down. 

A knock came before either of them said anything, “What’s with all the banging?” Ragnor snapped, still behind the door.

Magnus rolled his eyes before opening the room to a sleep frazzled Ragnor, “If you must know we’re sparring.”

“Sparring?” like the concept was foreign to him. Or at least foreign when paired with Magnus.

“Well I can’t very well use my magic now can I?”

Ragnor’s sleepy face squished closer together, a grunt his answer as he turned and headed back to Isabelle’s room. Magnus watched him go before turning back to Alec, “Bath?”

“You go first, I need to rip another one of Jace’s shirts up.” 

Magnus gave him a lecherous grin before sauntering into the bathroom, the taps running not long after. Alec rooted through Jace’s wardrobe, bypassing all the ones that clung, and Alec had found out which ones those were after spending yesterday with the circulation cutting off to his arms. Or maybe it was just how Jace was built in general, he did seem smaller than Alec. Or, which was more probable, it was because these shirts were from a few years ago and both Alec and Jace had grown since then.

Nonetheless he needed something to wear and the clothes waiting for him downstairs had been dirtied and sweated through enough times they certainly weren’t wearable right now. 

He should have known Ragnor was somewhat paying attention when he interrupted them since, later, once everyone was awake and waiting for night to really fall, Ragnor tried out a few of the moves he’d learned through the years on Alec as well. Then Raphael, until he was wishing the idea of self defence had never reared its head.

“I can’t believe it’s only been two weeks,” Alec sighed that next night. His clothes were clean, there was food in their pantry and Alec, after firing off a few arrows, was relaxing on the roof.

“It feels longer,” Magnus agreed. “But that’s probably because the last time I was allowed to move on my own was, what, a month ago now?”

Alec hummed. “At least we can go outside here.” Kind of. 

“We also have use of our hands,” Magnus purred, turning on his side, his hands making grabby motions Alec’s way.

Alec huffed out a laugh, but he wasn’t one to say no. Not to this. He let Magnus take the lead, relaxing into the kiss. It wasn’t too hard, he figured out, once he’d taken some mental notes, to imitate what Magnus was doing. To twist his head that little bit more so he could nip another part of Magnus’s lips. He brought a hand up, feeling the soft hairs at the back of Magnus’s head, longer than how he’d wore it two weeks ago. Longer than he probably wore it altogether if the faces he pulled on a morning were anything to go by. Alec liked it anyway, the feather soft tufts he could run his finger through, the longer parts on top, tinged with gold, sparkling with remnants of glitter that Magnus sadly informed him he was running out of. He tugged gently, Magnus rumbling low in his throat, kneeling up and pressing closer to Alec, his chest hitting Alec’s shoulder. 

He didn’t know how but his shirt went over the roof at some point. Magnus’s too. Despite that, he kept his hands low, cupping them around Magnus’s waist. Magnus, too, didn’t do much. In fact nothing more than seeing that chest pressed against his own happened until Ragnor screamed at them that dinner was ready. 

With nothing but long days, or nights as they were, Alec often found himself pressed up against something after that. The ground after archery practice. The wall in Jace’s room after Magnus attempted to con him into another wager he was sure to lose. The roof, which, well they never really had a motive for going up to the roof. Either way, Alec was quickly coming to appreciate every single second he got alone with Magnus, even if it was just listening to him tell stories about this one time in Italy. 

They had navigated to the front room, the plan being to strip the whole thing of anything downworlder related so they could actually use it instead of confining themselves to a select number of rooms. Sure, the solar was somewhere they could go too. But Raphael couldn’t go in there during the day. The windows were too long to barricade, and covering them even with curtains made the room so hot Alec had to quickly back out.

So they were cleaning out the front room, Alec packing everything away as gently as he could to bury in dad’s trophy room. It didn’t take too long. An hour or two at most. The real hard work was vampire proofing the room without magic. Something Magnus needed a break from as he hung his head back on the couch, a cool glass of lemonade in hand. Alec had been set on giving him a break. Really. Except the sun was still shining through, and Magnus’s neck literally shone with all the glitter he was wearing like some sign from the heavens and Alec was a weak, newly infatuated man with a guy who liked him right there so, really, he wouldn’t say he was to blame for ending up skipping work to suck on Magnus’s neck.

He got an approving hum, Magnus chuckling before pushing Alec into the couch cushions, the two of them forgetting, for a while, what they were even supposed to be doing in there.

Despite all of that, he didn’t sleep well that night. He thought he might, what with the good day he’d had, but no, he woke like he always did these days with a pit of worry in his throat. It lingered throughout breakfast instead of leaving as it usually did. Showering did nothing, but then, showering didn’t do much but make Alec annoyed since even Jace’s shower was too small. He was scowling when he brushed his teeth, Jace staying on his mind regardless of the fact he and Magnus were meant to be going exploring again today. 

He sighed, spitting out the toothpaste, wiping his mouth and looking up to see something not exactly right. He couldn’t put his finger on it, squinting into the mirror. Not until he noticed something off with his shadow. That being his shadow hadn’t been that rounded, wasn’t supposed to look that dimensional.

He turned, his shadow looking normal. It was normal again when he looked in the mirror. He rubbed his eyes, telling himself he was having a nap at some point today. Except, he turned the tap off, except his reflection wasn’t following his hands. Or his body when he stood properly. It stayed, still in the mirror, bent over facing the water. 

Alec felt his breath coming short as he tried to figure out how he was doing this. He snapped his fingers, clapped, even told his reflection to stop doing whatever it was doing yet it still remained where it was. 

Until it didn’t. Slowly his reflection stood upright, eyes locking with Alec’s, widening, almost like Alec expected his own face to look like, then he stepped aside, the shadow Alec had thought was odd before stepping forwards, gaining life until a man Alec felt like he knew was staring back at him. 

The man’s head tilted slightly, eyes blinking disjointedly yellow, slitted, once before fading into a brown, the green inside glowing slightly. They narrowed, and despite the mirror separating them Alec heard him crystal clear asking, “Where are Clarissa and Jonathan?”

Clarissa? Jonathan? What? “Who?” Clary? Was that who he meant? The other, he was pretty sure he knew a Jonathan. It just took him a moment to remember being told about him at eleven years old.

The man didn’t answer, just looked at Alec with a disappointed glint in his eyes, “They’ll be coming for you if they don’t find them Alexander.” 

He didn’t know what to say. How to say anything. 

There was a knock on the bathroom door, the man pinning Alec there until “Alec?” Was asked through the door. Alec’s eyes flickered, and when he looked back the mirror was back to normal, his reflection moving when he did,

His breath came short as he ran out, almost knocking Ragnor over. He didn’t stop running until he was outside, the fresh air hitting his lungs. He tried to think. Tried to work out what the hell had just happened. How- just how?

“Alec!” he watched as Ragnor ran over to him. “Alec what’s wrong?” He took Alec’s arm, leading him gently back towards the house. Probably for the best, it was still light out, who knew who might be lurking around the Lightwood grounds. 

Like a demon. Like that demon that had just appeared in his mirror. 

Alec didn’t have any doubt it was a demon. The question was why he was here. How he was here. The demon towers should have kept any demon out. Even higher level demons. 

He didn’t really know what to do. Not until about an hour later, Ragnor stroking his hair as they sat on the couch. Not until he remembered little things his mom and Ragnor had told him after he’d woke up at the Institute. Things like angel blood and summoning and how the Seelies were closing off their realm. Alec didn’t know about Jace, but Clary, she was new, she was untrained, probably, right? That was what Isabelle had said. She’d be easy to snatch. To drain for her angel blood.

He darted up, debating only a moment before running upstairs and doing a very stupid thing. 

He ran out, again, as far into the woods as he could get actually. He ran until he found a path of grass empty enough above he could lift off, glad the sun was almost gone as he went as high as he could. He could feel the demon towers pressing in on him, keeping him contained in the safe bubble Idris was protected by. He prayed no one saw him as he skipped through his list of names until he came to Isabelle’s, the phone ringing only twice before she was picking up with a worried, “Are you okay? What’s happened?” since they were meant to be keeping communication to nonexistent. 

“You need to get Jace and Clary to Idris right now. Don’t ask me why Izzy there’s no time. Just tell them to pack a bag, call Catarina and get them here.” He flew a little further over the woods, “I need to destroy my phone, so you have to promise you’ll do this Iz.”

“Yeah, no yeah, I will,” she said.

Alec hung up before she could ask anything, taking his phone apart and destroying the sim. The battery came next, Alec flying to Lake Lyn tossing the phone itself in before flying back to the manor and burning the battery in the fire Ragnor had going. “Alec?” 

“Jace and Clary are coming to hide with us,” Izzy said Jace never left Clary’s side so maybe that was why they were targeting him too? Either way, there had to be some reason, some vendetta against them for a demon to know they were next in line after Alec. He told Ragnor anyway. After he’d made sure there were no mirrors or windows or anything reflective around him. His hands were shaking by the end, thinking of anything else a demon could use to get in. 

Ragnor took the news as well as Alec thought he would. Meaning he didn’t take it well at all. He threatened to phone Alec’s mom four times, Alec had to actually wake Raphael to help talk Ragnor down from actually following through. They only had three phones left, and they couldn’t lose any more of their lifelines. Magnus was quiet through it all. Sitting in the corner, as Ragnor started on wards and stripping this place of anything that could let a demon in because “We’ve been so stupid. Princes of Hell don’t operate like normal demons.” They were capable of thought after all. Capable of planning and finding loopholes and doing anything it took to get what they wanted.

They were still going over everything that had to be hidden when a knock came to the door. They looked to Raphael, the man sniffing once before nodding. “It’s the nephilim.”

Alec let them in, making sure the door shut before leaving them to it, joining Ragnor and the others as talk moved back onto hiding in Ragnor’s own house where he wouldn’t have to worry about using his magic because he could ward himself properly in there. 

“Excuse me,” came when Raphael had to outright confiscate Ragnor’s phone, Clary standing, arms crossed, in the doorway, “Does anyone want to tell me what we’re doing here? Izzy said there was some sort of emergency.”

Magnus was the one who stood, taking Clary’s arm, “Let’s get you settled biscuit.”

She went, Alec hearing Jace take the bags upstairs. A soft, “Hey,” came after a minute, “Who took my bed?” Reminding Alec of the shirts he’d ripped up. He was going to have to lay low the next few days. Or hide the shirts and hope Jace didn’t know what, exactly, he’d left in his room last time he’d been here.

It was a long night all in all. None of them got to sleep until well into the morning, Alec refusing to sleep even after that. Magnus too, the two of them sitting against the headboard until Alec decided he wasn’t in the mood to be doing nothing. “Where are you going?” Magnus murmured.

“To find every mirror in this place and hide it.” Every other thing Ragnor had mentioned on his list as well. 

“Okay,” Magnus said, digging out his slippers. 

“Okay?” 

Magnus nodded, “Okay. Let’s go.”

He didn’t question it, instead going into Izzy’s bathroom and taking every hand mirror, makeup palette, hang on mirror in sight. He even fetched the screwdriver from downstairs, Magnus holding the mirror steady as Alec unscrewed it from the sink. They covered it as soon as they got it down. That and all the others. 

When they were done, they carefully bundled them up, mindful not to wake Ragnor after Raphael shot them hateful looks when they made a particularly loud thing crash. The front room was neutral for now, and just like everything else they’d stripped from this house, as soon as they were finished their latest raid, they’d put it in the trophy room with the others. 

Jace’s room they couldn’t go into anymore. Not that Jace was even in there. Him and Clary had claimed Max’s room when Magnus, later telling Alec this in bed, had informed him of the sleeping arrangements and how no, they wouldn’t be giving him his bed back because Raphael had just gotten used to the new surface. Alec might not understand what was going on between Raphael and Magnus, but even he knew not to actually mess with Raphael over anything that might disrupt his peace of mind. So sleeping arrangements? Staying.

That didn’t stop Jace from banning them from his space, Magnus not telling Alec whether he’d informed Jace they’d been using that space for the past how many long weeks they’d been here now as a sort of lounge, training area. Whatever the case, they weren’t getting in there tonight, or Max’s room, so Alec had Magnus pick the lock on his dad’s room, careful not to touch anything he didn’t have to as he fetched the mirrors out, Magnus locking it again when they were done.

His grandparents room, the solarium, the library Alec only found now they’d went this deep into the manor. Every single room they made sure to go into, stripping it clean until the trophy room was near bursting with mirrors on every surface. They locked the door, Alec rubbing his eyes as the late afternoon sun hit them. 

“Do you think we should check the cellar?” Magnus asked.

Alec honestly didn’t know. “Will you be wanting more wine?”

They both sighed, knowing Magnus, or at least Ragnor, would want wine at some point. So they grabbed Magnus’s phone, Raphael snatching it out his hand, “I’ll do it. You two deal with the nephilim.”

“It’s still light out,” Magnus reminded him.

Raphael rolled his eyes, “I hear which way you turn when you’re fetching wine, I’ll be fine.”

Magnus still grumbled about it. He paced the entire time Raphael was down there, which was extremely unhelpful when the nephilim, as if summoned by Raphael, appeared in the kitchen. “Everything alright?” Clary asked, Jace clearing his throat when, right, Alec remembered, he didn’t wear a shirt to bed and he hadn’t exactly gotten changed before going on a mirror hunt. 

Crossing his arms Alec nodded. “Fine.”

“Really?” Jace asked. “Because the whole reason we came here was because things weren’t alright.”

Which Alec supposed was true. Still, the attitude wasn’t needed, or welcome. “Raphael’s fetching wine, that’s all.”

Neither seemed to grasp the gravity of the situation, and Alec wasn’t going to enlighten them. Thankfully, Jace had either tact, or didn’t care since he swiftly moved past all of them to the cupboards. One, then two, then three were opened before, “Where’s the food?”

“Depends what you’re after.” They looked like they’d been up a while, which reminded him, “we need to get into your room today, so whatever… delicates, you have, put them in a bag or whatever. Max’s room too.”

Jace was scowling when he straightened up, eyeing Alec for a minute before asking, “Why?”

“Because we do.” and they’d probably have to go in again when Ragnor finished showering or whatever he was doing up there since Alec was sure they hadn’t even started to tackle all the things the demons could use to make contact. 

Jace opened his mouth, yet it was Clary who asked, “Pasta?”

Alec pointed to a cupboard that hadn’t been opened yet. “It’s Raphael’s turn to cook if you want to wait a few hours.” Since God knows the rest of them would be too busy to cook tonight. 

Clary’s face twisted, “I think we’re good with pasta.”

Right, shadowhunters.

Raphael wasn’t burnt to a crisp when he came back out. He had one long mirror dragging behind him too, a bottle of wine stretching out his blazer pocket as well. “Where is this going?”

“Trophy room,” Alec said.

Raphael dragged it out and over to the hall leading to the back of the manor. “Dad doesn’t have a trophy room.”

Alec didn’t know what got under his skin more, the fact Jace called him dad, had probably been allowed, encouraged, to call him dad. Or that he didn’t know about the trophy room. Yes, Izzy hadn’t known about the rug, and when they were here mom probably tried to keep them as far away from that life as possible. If he were thinking clearly he probably wouldn’t have been so snappy either. But he hadn’t slept, he’d had weeks of bad dreams behind him, and something about Jace just never sat right with him, so Alec couldn’t really control the tone of his voice when he said, “You obviously don’t know dad as well as you think then.”

The cupboard door slammed closed harder than it needed to, “I didn’t even know you’d been here,” Jace said.

“Why wouldn’t I have been?”

“You don’t have a room,” Jace pointed out. 

“Okay,” Magnus clapped his hands, getting between the pair of them. “I think Alexander and I need to freshen up. Biscuit, you’ll be fine if I leave you for a while won’t you?”

Despite her shrug, Clary’s eyes were on Jace, “Sure.”

“Excellent.” Magnus towed Alec out, the two of them climbing the many stairs to Isabelle’s room. 

A shower might have cooled him off, had he not remembered the last time he’d had a shower, and the fact Izzy’s too, was tiny. Magnus just shoved him back in the bathroom anyway, the bath running instead. 

Ragnor was dressed and ordering people around when Alec emerged, clean and not accosted by some demonic reflection. He was negotiating the unlocking of Jace’s door, Alec hearing Magnus and Raphael a room over. “Just give me a minute,” Jace said. 

“Fine, but we need to get in there,” Ragnor agreed.

What Jace needed a minute for Alec couldn’t begin to guess, so he went to help Magnus and Raphael, looking over the list of objects Ragnor had, indeed, made up for them, and helping grab as many things as he could. “He’s making us dream catchers too,” Magnus informed him.

“Dream catchers?” Right. Demons could give dreams. “You think that’s why we’ve been sleeping so badly?”

Magnus shrugged, “it’s an option.”

“He’s importing them,” Raphael told them, “Not making them before you ask. Your mother’s allowing Tessa to send some over.”

That was news to him, “He’s been talking to my mom?” They weren’t supposed to have contact. That was the whole reason Alec had destroyed his phone in the first place.

“Biscuit sent some fire messages for us,” Magnus told him. “Your mother’s burning them as soon as she gets them.”

Right. 

Tessa wasn’t only sending dream catchers it turned out. She had potions, remedies and a full cooler of blood for Raphael. Alec was starting to like her. Especially when she’d included a few handwritten letters Izzy had made for him, and a photo for Magnus of his precious cats all in good health and being spoiled by Cat. 

“Is that everything?” Ragnor asked later, the six of them gathered in the front room, a pile of objects strewn in front of them.

“Everything we could find on our first round,” Magnus agreed. “No doubt Robert has a few things hidden here and there.” the journal coming to mind, “but it should do for now yes?”

Ragnor nodded. “For now.” he started piling them into the bedsheets they’d stripped in the apartments, covering and hoisting them up. Alec and the others followed, leaving them outside the trophy room door for Ragnor to slide inside. It took three trips in total for all of them to finish carrying the objects across the manor but they did it, Alec breathing a little easier when the door shut and locked everything inside. 

Raphael, as promised, made dinner, and despite eating earlier Jace and Clary graced them with their presence at the table. The easy talk they’d had the days before were gone, and this time Alec wasn’t completely blaming the shadowhunters for that. Something about the fact demons could reach them even in Idris was unsettling to everyone present. That didn’t mean the atmosphere lifted when Clary asked “So what’s the plan here exactly?”

“The plan?” Alec repeated.

Clary looked around at them expectantly, “You guys have a plan right? We’re waiting for someone to give us a signal or something.”

Was she actually for real here? “We’re in hiding.”

“Yeah,” She agreed, “but not forever right?” When no one said yes her mood soured further, “Are you joking? You’re joking right?”

“I don’t think you understand the severity of what’s going on here,” Alec said. 

“Demons,” Clary said like that answered everything. 

“Greater demons,” Alec clarified. 

She didn’t look any less annoyed than she had before. “So?”

Ragnor sent Alec a quelling look, “What Alec is trying to say is that this isn’t something we can simply exorcise back to Edom. It’s not just demons that are after us.” 

“I know, Magnus did explain it.” Then why was she not getting it. “But these warlocks are only after you because of the Circle, right? So if we disband the Circle, if we stop Valentine, then the warlocks won’t have a reason to come after you.”

Alec shuddered out a breath, he couldn’t explain this. Not right now. Ragnor saw so too, “We’ll talk after supper,” he promised Clary, forcing the conversation away from warlocks and how it wasn’t just the motives of the warlocks now they had to be afraid of. Clary had a prince of hell, probably more than one, looking for her, who knew her name. This was beyond bad. Mainly because they were summoning more princes of hell who were going to do who knew what in this realm. 

Magnus was the one to bring the dream catchers up, replacing a poster of some mundane band with it. “Are you sure that’ll work?” Alec asked even if he could already feel his eyes droop.

“It should,” Magnus sighed, flopping back onto the mattress, “But I guess we’ll find out tonight anyway.” He turned around, his head thumping against the pillow. Alec let him get settled before burrowing down himself. He was out not long after that.

For the first time in weeks Alec woke that next afternoon more rested than when he went to sleep. Magnus wasn’t squirming either, his eyes shut, mouth snoring softly. Alec stretched getting up and kicking Raphael’s side of the mattress when he passed, one eye glaring out at him.

“Wake Ragnor if you hear anything weird,” he whispered.

Raphael didn’t look so mad after that, nodding slightly before looking dead to the world again. Thankfully nothing happened, Alec happily hopping down to the kitchen. 

There was a plate with his name on when he came in. Breakfast, a hot breakfast, or lukewarm now, had been made for him. He didn’t recognise the writing however, so Alec left it where it was and fetched the bread, buttering his toast not long after. He didn’t think anyone had been up before him. Ragnor and Magnus were still asleep when he left the room, and Raphael would be eating long before thinking about feeding Alec. Considering he, too, had been burrowed into Ragnor’s side when Alec left he couldn’t think who would have made him breakfast. 

Which wasn’t good. 

There was a clatter from further in the manor, Alec grabbing a knife before venturing that little bit closer. He heard the voices long before he came to the room, the manor having a way of carrying sound. It looked like he wasn’t the only one awake, Alec forgetting Jace and Clary were here, as stupid as that sounded. Still, paranoid was paranoid after the last few days he’d had, so Alec still checked.

They were sparring, seraph blades clanging against each other, and looking far more fluid than Alec could ever hope to. Maybe it was a shadowhunter thing. Maybe it was just inexperience, after all, Magnus looked pretty good when he fought. 

Clary was the one to spy him first, Jace disarming her in seconds and a “What did I say about distractions?”

Clary didn’t answer, save for a nod of her head in Alec’s direction. He turned, he’d gotten what he’d came to see.

“Wait,” he heard Jace’s boots scurry after him, “Alec.” He stopped, Jace rubbing the back of his neck as he caught up, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Alec said back.

Jace rubbed his neck so much it was starting to go red. “So er…” Alec waited him out, Jace was the one who wanted to talk. “Do you want to spar?”

Hmm. Humiliating himself against Jace? “No, thank you.” He may have once had dreams of besting him in a fight, but Alec wasn’t stupid. He knew Jace would win, and Alec’s ego didn’t need that right now. 

“Are you sure?” Jace asked. “The training room’s big enough for all three of us.”

Training room? “I thought that was a ballroom.”

Jace’s brow rose, “There’re weapons on the walls.”

Alec shrugged, not seeing how that didn’t make it a ballroom. 

“Well it’s a training room,” Jace said, the silence stretching between them afterwards. “So that’s a no?”

“That’s a no.” He walked off before anything else could be asked. 

Ending up outside, Alec strung his bow, enjoying the last of the sunlight. He had a guest about twelve arrows in, Magnus curling up with a pillow at the edge of the safety line, his eyes all droopy as he relaxed into the grass. Alec shot a few more before going over and joining him, the two of them cloud spotting until it got too dark to see them.

“Who’s cooking tonight?” Alec asked after failing to follow Magnus’s finger to the right constellation.

“Well,” Magnus considered, “Raphael cooked yesterday, Ragnor the day before. If we’re going off schedule- you know what, I’ll cook.”

That meant it was his turn, “I can make something.”

“Oh sweetie,” Magnus cooed, and okay Alec’s food wasn’t the best, but it was better than nothing. Still Magnus insisted, “I’ll do it,” pecking Alec’s cheek, “But you’re more than welcome to wash up.”

He tried to help anyway, and after accidentally cutting his finger with a knife was delegated to simply refilling Magnus’s wine glass whenever it ran empty. 

Magnus loved it, “I feel like Zeus, which by the way the painting of…” which led into an in depth story about a painter Magnus may or may not have slept with once upon a time. “... maybe I should ask biscuit to make a rendition of it for us. Of course we’ll replace Ganymede with yourself, otherwise what’s the point of getting it commissioned.”

Alec rolled his eyes, yet he refilled Magnus’s cup when it ran empty again.

Ragnor came sniffing around as soon as the bottle was almost empty. He looked like he’d never met Magnus in his life when he asked if his friend had really just drank a whole bottle himself. Cooking no less. “It’s an open flame.”

“I’ve cooked far drunker than this before.” considering Magnus was only bordering on tipsy right now Alec had to wonder what that was like. 

“I don’t care about you,” Ragnor snapped.

“Harsh,” Magnus muttered.

“It’s poor Alec I’m thinking about. He’s very flammable,” Ragnor even dragged him that little bit further away from the stove like he wasn’t already far enough away it wouldn’t spark onto him. 

“That was one time, and the fire was an actual fire,” Alec reminded him, which got him looks from both parties. Which led to Ragnor telling the tale of when Alec tried to make him pasta one night to say sorry and ended up with a fire so large he actually had to call the mundane fire brigade to put it out. “It wasn’t that bad, I just didn’t know how to put a fire out.” Not an oil fire anyway.

“He was grounded for weeks,” Ragnor told the room, Magnus sniggering as he tossed the pan again.

“Alright,” Alec decided, Magnus didn’t need to hear that part. “Let’s move onto something else.”

“How about the time you ran away,” Raphael chimed, appearing from the shadows like some sort of sadistic ghoul. 

“How about we don’t tell that story.”

“Which time?” Ragnor sighed, completely ignoring Alec. “The first time was bad, I'll grant you. But that fourth time?” he shook his head, “He got all the way to the airport before Raphael tracked him down.”

“I had to pretend to be related to him.” Raphael pulled a face, Alec sulking back onto his chair. “And not for the first time. You’re very lucky there were only mundanes working there.”

He slid further down in his seat until, “What were you doing in an airport?” came behind him, Alec turning to see Clary walk in, Jace just behind her.

“Nothing.” The others didn’t answer her either. 

A thick silence descended, one only broken when Magnus started ladling plates up, Alec shuffling his chair back to the table. Three minutes in, Jace jerked a little in his seat, Clary glaring at him until he shook his head. “So Alec,” Clary started when another few minutes had passed. “I was wondering if you’d let me sketch you.”

“Sketch me?” Had Magnus put her up to this? 

“You know biscuit,” as if reading Alec’s mind, “we were just talking about you doing a painting. Even without those magnificent wings on his back Alexander is a muse that only comes once in a lifetime.”

He felt his cheeks colouring as he rolled his eyes. “Not happening.” Also, “What exactly is she supposed to even paint on. I don’t see any art supplies lying around.” So there, no painting. Not right now anyway, his hair needed cut. 

“I mean they sell canvases in town,” Jace said.

“Yeah but our supply run isn’t for another ten days,” maybe less now they had more people living here.

“Well,” Raphael chimed, Alec not liking the considering look in his eye, “Now we have two actual shadowhunters, maybe we can make more frequent journeys. They won’t stand out after all.”

Which was true, Alec gave him that. But, “Won’t they be recognise-”

“Wait,” Jace realised, “Have you been sending a vampire into town? Do you know how stupid that is?”

“We didn’t really have a lot of choice,” Alec pointed out. 

Something moved under the table, Clary forcing a smile onto her face as she said, “What Jace meant to say is that it probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do. But, I guess you’re right. And we’re here now anyway so we can definitely go get supplies. Right Jace?”

A look was had between them before Jace slid down in his seat, a muttered, “Right,” slipping out. 

It was like treading on eggshells after that. Conversation, when it was had, were simple, mundane things that couldn’t possibly spark a fight. At least, not when it wasn’t Jace talking to Alec. Or the other way around. Mostly the meal was had in silence because of that, Alec more than happy to disappear upstairs once the dishes had been washed. Magnus came twirling in not long after, a glass of wine in hand he had Alec hold as he wiped his makeup off. He bounced into bed not long after, downing the wine in one go before worming his way onto Alec’s chest. It only took a few minutes of finding the right spot before Magnus was asking, “I may be out of line, or had a little too much to drink but is there something going in with you and that blond boy?” 

“I just-” He couldn’t describe it, and he wasn’t stupid enough to say there was nothing there because there was. He wasn’t too good at hiding it either, hence being here feeling like an idiot as he played out the conversation from this morning. He should have just sparred. Maybe it would have made things better between them. Maybe finally throwing a punch Jace’s way would have made him feel better. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Alec didn’t know, and wouldn’t know now he’d walked away. “He bothers me.”

“Did he say something?” Magnus mumbled, yawning into Alec’s chest.

“No.” Not really. In fact, Jace was trying far more than Alec was. He put it a little down to Clary, but yeah Jace was trying. It was just Alec. He was the one who didn’t want to try. “I just don’t want to talk to him.”

“Okay,” Magnus yawned again, patting Alec’s arm a few times before just leaving his hand there, “We’ll keep you two away from each other then. This house is certainly big enough.” Then he was asleep, soft breaths puffing away the hours as Alec tried to find his own rest.

Magnus stuck to his word. He woke up before Alec, even had breakfast ready, and after cajoling him into a hot bath took the two of them on a long walk into the surrounding forest. The two of them bird watched until dark, and after chasing Raphael back after he’d purposefully snuck up on them they lounged around the library the rest of the night. Nothing too exciting in the grand scheme of things, but it kept Alec away from Jace, away from even thinking about Jace, which easily had Alec in a good mood. 

What had him in a better mood was Magnus sorting his feathers out as he tried to read. He hadn’t even noticed some of the aggravation of feathers sticking too close together, or ones that had fallen out stuck rubbing against the bone until Magnus took them out for him, sorting them into piles and looking very pleased with himself. Alec was quickly on his way to nap city when Magnus finished with the short feathers near his back. 

“You done?” Alec sighed, stretching his wings out after nothing had happened for a few moments. 

“Yup,” Magnus lay next to him, “And since I unearthed them, as the ancient law dictates, I get to keep them.”

“Fine,” he leaned up onto his elbows again, “I did promise you one after all.”

“You did.” Magnus grabbed the horde he’d plucked, wiggling one under Alec’s nose until he laughed, batting it away. “What are you reading?” he asked, setting the feather back down.

“Poetry. Turns out my family, or, Izzy’s I guess, were rather interested in writing it.” Anna most certainly was. There was a whole shelf she had dedicated to poetry. The rest of the bookcase with Anna’s name inscribed along the side were filled with female writers. Some raunchy tales, others romantic novels of eras past. Other Lightwoods over the years had cases dedicated to their favourites too. It made him wonder, if digital wasn’t a thing, if his siblings would have demanded their own shelves as well. Or, if when the new generation of Lightwoods came, they would dedicate a shelf to their formers. He’d found some more of his grandparent’s correspondences here. He was starting to think this was just where a lot of the Lightwood paperwork ended up when the rooms needed to be cleaned out for newer children. 

Magnus bumped his shoulder, an understanding look on his face as he leaned his head on Alec’s arm. “Read a bit?”

He did, Anna’s journals, at least, not filled with the same brutal torture porn his parents were. She was actually quite interesting, and looked a lot like his sister when he unearthed a photo of her from another one of her journals. 

“You know, some shadowhunters weren’t all bad,” Magnus said, his finger running through book titles the night afterwards. “The Lightwoods were always a little prickly, but they’ve had their good ones just as much as their bad ones.” He picked a book out, carrying that, and a few more, over to Alec. “Sometimes I think it’s the balance of the world. The angels have to make a few bad ones to remind us downworlders of our place in the world. Sometimes I blame the parents. Most times I worry that the good ones are merely blips in the system.”

“Izzy’s kids will be nice,” Alec said. He hoped anyway. Izzy had too good a heart to raise her kids wrong.

Yet, “Not everyone’s children are products of their upbringing. Look at you. At your sister. Even Jace is nicer than some of the shadowhunters I’ve encountered through the years, yet your parents were, arguably monsters.”

“I guess.”

Magnus bopped him on the nose, “Don’t think about it too much. I didn’t bring it up to depress you, I just wanted to show you a few of the shadowhunters I met.” Which he did, starting with Benedict Lightwood.

Alec felt like he needed to gouge his eyes out with bleach after that story. The photos too. Old as they were, Benedict had definitely stayed still long enough to get a good photo of some of his favourite demons. How they were even still in this library was a mystery. Magnus theorised no one wanted to go through Benedicts journals so they’d merely been left there, undisturbed, for years. Which wasn’t so far fetched since Magnus had also found that journal of his parents here, undisturbed.

The others were better. Cecily, Sophie, Gabriel, Gideon, two of those names Alec knew since he and his sister were named after them. They looked like nice people. His namesake looked like a nice person and, “They would have liked you.”

“Really?” Alec asked.

Magnus reached over him to another one of Cecily’s journals, Alec getting a feeling he’d been sneaking off in here to read them while Alec was in the bath. Sure enough, he knew the right page to flip to for a photo to fall out. This one of the London Institute, their face’s sombre since, ‘it’s much easier to hold a frown than a smile, trust me’. He found the Lightwoods, Magnus pointing out someone between Sophie and some other boy. “Look familiar?” It took a minute to place her. More so because it wasn’t in colour. But Tessa, while younger, was familiar to his eye after a moment. 

“She married a shadowhunter,” Alec remembered.

“William Herondale. This one. You look a lot like him,” Magnus said. “Something I’m not sure wasn’t a cruel trick on your father’s part or inbreeding on your mothers.”

He held back the comments he had about that, instead looking at Tessa. She didn’t look unhappy there, despite her frown. Her arms were linked with William and Sophie, the others not looking put out at all that there was a warlock in their midst. He handed the photo back to Magnus.

“She was happy,” he said, as if reading Alec’s mind. “She still looks for her and Will’s great great something or other grandchildren. The last one, I think, died during the uprising.” Magnus frowned for a moment before going on with, “What I’m trying to say is that they didn’t care. About a lot of things actually. So yes, they would have liked you Alexander.”

**Author's Note:**

> again, don't know which one I'm going to continue, but this one was supposed to be where the first story in this series was supposed to go. I might still end up combining them. We'll see.


End file.
